But for the Grace
by Refur
Summary: Dean had always thought he was prepared for the time when Sam would leave him again. That is, until it actually happened. [Now complete!]
1. Chapter 1

I have no cool stuff. Supernatural is cool. Draw your own conclusions.

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**But for the Grace**

It wasn't anything in particular that woke Dean up. In fact, it might have been the _absence_ of something in particular that did it, though of course there was no way he would figure that out until later, and by then he would have more important things to worry about. Whatever, he was awake, anyway, and probably he was awake for a good five minutes before he rolled over and saw that Sam was gone.

The drop in his stomach was familiar; after all, it wasn't the first time it had happened, and mostly he'd always been wrong and Sam had always come back, mostly Sam had just woken up with the freakin sparrows and gone to grab some breakfast. Except that mostly Sam didn't make his bed before he went for coffee, and to be honest, Sam's hospital corners were more kind of sloppy wrinkles anyway. And yet, there it was, a bed so goddamn neat you'd think it just came out of the package. So what did that mean?

Dean figured it meant one of two things: Sam was a freakin geek weirdo, or Sam was messing with him. Closing his eyes against the pulsing of his hangover, he decided it was probably both.

A few minutes later, he decided that there was no way that the napalm drop going on behind his eyes was going to let him go back to sleep. What he needed was some aspirin and some coffee. Maybe a gun so he could shoot himself in the head and end his own suffering. Unfortunately, of those three requirements, the only one he was sure there was in the motel room was the gun. And yeah, OK, he felt like freakin Satan himself was tapdancing on his frontal lobe or whatever, but he wasn't quite sure he was ready for the final solution just yet.

Sam. Sam would bring coffee. If there was one thing that could be relied on in this world, it was that Sam would bring coffee. Maybe if the little fucker was feeling particularly sympathetic, he would bring aspirin, too.

Of course, Dean's last memory of last night was Sam glaring at him across the bar as he finished off a whisky chaser and grinned at this smokin barmaid, and he figured the fact he didn't remember anything after that might imply that little brother had been saddled with the task of getting him home in one piece, so the sympathy might not be forthcoming after all. In fact, now that he thought about it, he seemed to be lying on top of the covers fully clothed, which was definitely not a good sign. He couldn't remember the last time he had had a hangover this bad. Where the hell was Sam with the goddamn coffee?

Sighing, Dean cracked his eyelids open again, riding out the brief intensification of _Beelzebub: the musical_. He struggled up into a sitting position and found himself staring at his still-booted feet. _Nice, Sammy. Real nice_. He seemed to recall the last time he had had to put Sam to bed because the kid was too smashed to do it himself, he had at least had the decency to remove his brother's sneakers. Mind you, that had been about seven years ago now.

There was still no sign of Sam. It wasn't until he reached the bathroom, however, that he realised that there was _no_ sign of Sam. As in, none. No toothbrush under the mirror, no soap or shampoo in the shower, no razor by the sink. And when he staggered back into the bedroom, sure he must be mistaken, there was no duffel bag, either. And if Dean thought he'd felt bad before, he felt freakin _peachy _now.

Dean sank into a lumpy standard-issue motel easy chair and ran his hand through his hair. He could think of several possibilities: Sam had finally had enough of the hunting life and had wanted to practice his bed-making skills before he packed himself up and left to get a job as a night-porter at a rest home; Sam was on some bizarre neatness kick and was just about to walk back through the door with coffee and laugh at Dean for being so freaked; Sam was mad as hell after Dean's performance last night and was playing some kind of prank; something had come into the room in the night without either of them waking and taken Sam away, but had decided to cunningly cover its tracks by removing Sam's stuff and making the bed look as though it hadn't been slept in, in the hope that Dean would forget that his brother was ever there in the first place.

Prank, then. It had to be a prank. No need to panic.

Except that after Dean had been _not panicking_ for a few minutes, he noticed something else weird. It wasn't just that there was no sign of Sam in the room: there was no sign of Dean either. Well, OK, obviously there was the mussed bed and Dean himself, but beyond that there was not one item that didn't belong to the motel. That would have been pretty goddamn panic-worthy, if it hadn't convinced Dean that it really had to be a prank, because come on, what the hell kind of monster would take his brother _and_ his dirty laundry?

Dean's hand strayed to his cell phone, but before it got there he had a vision of Sam sitting in some yuppie coffee shop somewhere with a couple of duffel bags and grinning all over his face when he saw Dean's name on the caller ID. Dean might have been a little spooked, and his head might have felt like it would be better if it just went ahead and fell off his goddamn shoulders, but he wasn't quite ready to give in yet.

Coffee shop. Motel. No coffee shop at the motel.

Dean knew what was coming next even before he rose on shaky legs and pulled the curtain, felt it sidling up through the veils of pain in his head like a freakin crocodile or whatever. The motel parking lot was a wide expanse of grey asphalt under a wide expanse of grey sky, the monotony broken only by a few vehicles: a green Mustang, a black Volkswagen, something so battered that its original identity could only be guessed at. No Impala.

His car was gone. His freakin _car_ was freakin_ gone_.

Dean's finger hit the speed-dial before he even knew he'd taken the phone out of his pocket.

Sam's number rang through to voice-mail, and Dean drew in a deep breath, ready to give the goddamn voice-mail hell. _Hi, you've reached Sam Winchester. I'm probably in class or in the library. Leave a message and I'll get back to you._

Dean had got as far as _Sam, goddammit_, before he stopped as the words connected with his brain.

Class. Library. What the hell?

OK, that sealed it, definitely a prank. A pretty elaborate and carefully thought-out one, but Dean was in no mood to be giving his brother compliments, even in the privacy of his own throbbing mind. In fact, _especially_ not there. Prank meant Sam would come back pretty soon to crow over his victory. Prank meant Dean was pretty freakin pissed.

Prank meant Sam hadn't left him.

It was eight-thirty in the a.m. when Dean left his curtailed message on Sam's voice-mail. By nine, he had started pacing the motel room urgently, skin crawling because he'd spent most of his life in motel rooms and apartments rented by the day or week, but he had never been in one that seemed so _empty_. By nine forty-five, he had been outside to the parking lot three times to peer up and down the highway for any sign of the Impala. By ten twenty-three, he had called Sam's voice-mail nineteen times and left two angry messages, beyond caring about dignity by now.

By eleven fifty, Dean was behind the wheel of a rental car (a Toyota, as if his day hadn't been bad enough already) with a family-sized pack of aspirin and a gun bought cheap at a pawn shop on the seat (_Sam's seat_) beside him, heading for California.

It took all day to drive to Palo Alto, which gave Dean plenty of time to think, the thoughts chasing each other round his brain, surfacing every time he dropped his guard, every time the classic rock station broke up into static. He didn't want to think, but he couldn't help himself. Because hey, what the hell was he doing, driving a freakin Toyota for Christ's sake, driving west at one-and-a-half times the speed limit despite the fact that he didn't really know if Sam had gone there, didn't really know anything except that the Impala had not been parked by either of the two diners the small town where they had spent the night boasted, and all he had to go on was _class_ and _library_.

And more to the point, what the hell had he done last night that had made Sam so angry that he had taken off like that, for a prank or for real, because goddamn if this wasn't one of the least amusing experiences Dean had ever had, and he had plenty to pick from. What could he have done that was so unforgivable? And why hadn't Sam just realised that he was freakin wasted like a son of a bitch and waited for morning to give him hell? Surely that would be revenge enough, especially given the headache (_freakin volcano more like_) that still pounded through Dean's brain.

Of course, maybe Dean hadn't done anything at all. It wasn't like he had never contemplated the idea of waking up to find Sam had got sick of the hunting life and had upped and left without a word. He liked to tell himself that he was just being an idiot, that Sam would never do that to him, but doubt still crept around the corners of his mind, the ones he didn't like to look at because they were darker than a demon's asshole.

Except that couldn't be what had happened, because maybe, maybe Sam did have it in him to abandon Dean without a backward glance, but Sam had taken his car. His goddamn freakin sonofabitch _car_. And in all the visions (speculative rather than psychic) that Dean had had of this moment, of him chasing Sam back to Palo Alto, he had never been sitting in a freakin Toyota.

He reached the city a couple of hours after sunset. Sam still wasn't picking up his phone, but Dean figured classes must be over by now and when he swung past the library it was locked and dark. So that left... what? He didn't really know how it happened, except that he didn't have anything else to go on, and then there he was, sitting in the car that wasn't really worthy of the name, staring across the street at Sam's old apartment. But it was still being renovated, covered in scaffolding even now, a year after the fire, and Dean knew that Sam wouldn't have come back there anyway, that no matter how much Sam wanted to pick up the threads of his old life, that was one thread that was staying broken.

Dean forced himself to think rationally, as if he was just on another hunt, picking up clues, trying to work out where a monster or a spirit was hiding. Except he couldn't exactly go and research his own freaky little brother in the library and on the internet. Well, OK, he probably could, but he was sure whatever he found would tell him nothing new and nothing he wanted to know.

But _class_ and _library_ notwithstanding, there was no way Sam could have more than a twelve hour headstart on him. Which meant he couldn't have found an apartment yet, even if he'd had the money for a deposit, which Dean knew he didn't, not under his own name. So that left motels and bars, places that would give him a place to stay for a small wad of crumpled bills and never ask where the money came from. Motels and bars.

Lucky Dean Winchester was pretty good at motels and bars.

The bars around the university were slick and cold, and even the ones that looked run-down had an air of trying too hard. The parking lots were full of shiny European cars belonging to college boys and girls whose parents could afford to shield them from life. There was no black Impala.

There were more bars than Dean had thought, though, and it was almost midnight by the time he started searching the further sections of town, where the bars had blacked-out windows and motorcycles and beat-up pickups parked outside. The sort of bars Dean liked. The sort of bars Sam never wanted to go into.

Dean wasn't someone who gave up easily, at least not when it came to something like this, but he'd had a long and difficult day after a night when his body had wasted too much energy trying to return his various chemical processes to a state of equilibrium or whatever (_jeez, sometimes he talked just like Sam even in his own head. Freaky_), and by one thirty in the morning, he was beginning to feel a crushing weight pressing down on the back of his neck, a realisation that he could scour every damn bar and motel in the whole of this shithole town, in the whole of this shithole state even, and never find Sam because if Sam didn't want to be found, there was nothing he could do. Hell, he hadn't even been able to find his father, and his father's thoughts and habits were much more of an open book to him than Sam's secretive, incomprehensible mental processes. He wasn't someone who gave up easily, and he wasn't giving up now, but he could feel despair encroaching on the edges of his consciousness with tiny, needle-sharp claws.

And then at one forty-seven Dean saw the Impala parked outside a place that would have looked like it had seen better days except that actually it looked like it thought better days were just a myth that naïve parents told gullible children. It was probably called _Jed's_, but the neon in the third letter had shorted out or whatever, and Dean thought he should have known that Sam would be here, because the kid was nothing if not an expert at torturing himself over the past. _Je's_. Figured.

He forced himself to wait after he had slid the rental into park and shut off the engine, forced himself to sit and take slow, deep breaths until his knuckles were no longer white on the steering wheel and he was able to think through the mixture of relief and rage that burned behind his eyes. When he felt himself in control of his actions again, he got out of the car (_goddamn _Toyota _Sam, Jesus Christ I'm gonna kick your ass_) and made his way over to the Impala.

He wanted to march straight into the bar and drag his brother out by the goddamn hair, but he knew just how well that would go over, not so much with Sam (_who the goddamn hell cared what Sam thought right now anyway, the little punk was gonna be dead before he had a chance to complain_) but with the other patrons, so he decided first to check that no damage had come to his precious car in the hours since he had last seen her. It made him feel like he was doing something, and he almost hoped he would find a scratch or something so he could be even more righteous in his rage. He briefly imagined himself as Samuel L. Jackson in _Pulp Fiction_, spouting off Bible crap and unloading a clip into Sam's stupid puppy-dog face, and he looked freakin awesome, except he didn't know any Bible crap so that was kind of out and Dad would probably be kind of pissed if they had to use dental records to ID Sam's body, partly because Sam didn't have any dental records.

There were no dents, though, no nicks, no scratches. In fact, the car was cleaner and shinier than it had been the day before when they'd pulled into the parking lot at Motel Paradise, Nowheresville, USA. Yeah, _that_ made total sense. Somewhere in between stabbing Dean in the back and getting some good taste in bars, Sam had stopped to wash the goddamn car.

_His_ goddamn car.

His thoughts were interrupted by a brief burst of music and voices as the bar door opened and closed. He stood up from where he had been examining the front right-hand hubcap (_oh yeah, Sammy, those hubcaps _better_ not be damaged in any way_), and squinted in the direction of the noise, trying to make out the figure stumbling out of the shadows. Too-freakin-tall, ridiculous goddamn hair, jacket that had less style to it than freakin Richie Cunningham. Oh yeah, he knew that guy all right.

"Sam," he called, leaning back on the Impala, and Sam kind of looked up and started making his way towards him, seeming slightly unsteady on his feet.

"Yeah," he said, his voice raspy with smoke, and then he paused a few steps away and screwed up his features in what might have been displeasure or anything really, the streetlight wasn't too bright and Dean didn't really care what he was thinking anyway. "Dude," he said, sounding annoyed. "Get off my car."

Dean felt all the deep breathing and calming exercises drop away, and before he knew it he had two fistfuls of his brother's shirt and had him slammed up against the next car over and was up in his face, which wasn't too pleasant an experience because the amount of tequila on his brother's breath was probably enough to burn fifty corpses and still have some left over for Christmas. "What the _goddamn hell_, Sammy!" It wasn't exactly articulate, but then Dean had never been the articulate type. Hence the no Bible verses thing. OK, so articulate could be cool, but probably only if you were Samuel L.

Sam's shadowy expression shifted from annoyed to surprised, with something unfamiliar flickering at the edges, but again, Dean didn't really care whatever the hell Sam had on his face if it wasn't an abject, grovelling, begging, pleading a-goddamn-pology. And even then, he didn't care that much.

"I ought to freakin deck you into the middle of next week," he breathed. "In fact, I think I will."

Sam shifted slightly under him, and then did something Dean didn't expect. He laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh, hell, it didn't even have the slightest drop of humour in it, it was more the kind of sound a shotgun made when it clattered onto a concrete floor, but goddamn if it wasn't the most enraging thing Dean had ever heard, and he was letting go of Sam's shirt with one hand and winding back his fist when Sam said

"Get in line, pal."

That made Dean pause. Pretty much for a lot of reasons, like that Sam never called him 'pal' (that was what _Dean _called _Sam_, when he wasn't calling him geek boy or Samantha or princess), like that Sam wasn't reacting at all how Dean expected him to, like mainly that Sam's face turned slightly in the light and Dean saw that what had thought was just a lock of his brother's dumb hair plastered to his cheek was actually a trail of dried and drying blood. So Dean paused with his fist pulled back like a moron, and Sam stared at him and he stared at Sam and then he said

"What the hell, Sam. What the _hell_."

Sam wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and said, "You said that already."

Dean stared at him some more, feeling unsure of his own righteousness for the first time since he'd spotted the Impala in the parking lot. Sam stared back, and whatever it was in his eyes, it was not an apology.

"Listen, man, are you gonna punch me or not? Because if you are, you should just get on with it. If you're not, just get off my car and let me go home."

Dean swallowed. This was not what he wanted. He wanted Sam to explain, and he wanted it to be something stupid, something ridiculous, some glitch between Sam's brain and his sense of empathy that had made him think that this was somehow amusing, because then Dean could whale on him and shove him in the goddamn car (_it's _my _goddamn car_) and be hurt OK yeah but at least only a little, at least only hurt and not bewildered and on the edge of frightened, at least not _this_.

Sam was watching him, waiting for a response, and Dean realised he still had his fist pulled back. He couldn't think of what to say. He was no Samuel L. "What the hell, Sammy," he said again, but the fire was gone from his voice.

Sam snorted. "It's Sam. And how the hell do you know my name anyway?"

There it was, right there.

"What?" Dean whispered, but his lips had gone numb and his arms had dropped to his sides. He couldn't do anything, couldn't move, couldn't think. He could only stare.

Sam was moving already, swaying unsteadily but purposefully away from him, and Dean vaguely registered that he was saying something now in a softer voice, a voice that reminded him less of the dull edge of a neglected blade and more of Sam, of his annoying little brother at his most annoying, solicitous, apologetic (_oh yeah apologetic _now), saying something about a shelter and programmes and getting his life together and that was so freakin ironic that Dean almost laughed, would have done if his vocal chords hadn't been paralysed, because his own brother seemed to think he was homeless and how the hell could you be homeless if you'd never had a home?

The words didn't sink in, not really, but the sound of the car door opening did and somewhere in Dean's brain the thought registered that Sam was going to get in the car and drive away like he had sometime in the middle of the last night, and this time Dean might never find him again. Instinct took over then, and his body came back into play, ignoring the emotions that only ever got in the way anyway, and he turned and had the gun out of the belt of his jeans in one smooth movement and levelled it at his brother's head.

"Stop," he said, because it was all he could think of to say.

Sam froze, halfway into the Impala, staring round-eyed. "Jesus," he said. "You're freakin _car-jacking_ me?"

"Get in the car," Dean said. (_Car-jacking. He said car-jacking. It's _my goddamn car.)

Sam started to move further into the Impala, but Dean pulled back the hammer on the gun. "Other side," he said.

Sam looked at him. "You know, if you're car-jacking me then I'm supposed to drive. It's like a rule or something."

Typical Sam. Always got to follow the rules. "Keys," Dean said, then looked down at his palm in surprise. It wasn't the spare key that he had made Sam somewhere between Colorado and Ohio. It was the main key, _his_ key, which made sense he supposed because Sam had stolen everything else of his. But there was--

"What the hell is this?" Dean asked indignantly, holding up the offending object that dangled from the keyring, four inches of plastic smile and neon hair. "A freakin _troll_?"

Sam paused at the passenger-side door and scowled. "Fuck you," he said.

Dean didn't know what he had been expecting. This day was all shot to hell anyway, and something was going on that was very, very wrong and Sam didn't even seem to know who he was so he could hardly expect him to engage in brotherly banter even at the most appropriate time, which this was _so_ not. It hurt, all the same. And he realised that Sam had been right about something, perceptive even with God knew how much firewater in his skin. Dean felt homeless.

He had been forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

Supernatural isn't mine. Thanks and love to sasha2002, Liz Bach, carocali, bally2cute, Spooky-girl, PadfootObsessed329, Elemental-animal, Evergreene and charli for their kind reviews.

Forgot to mention last time that this is set sometime between _Shadow_ and_ Dead Man's Blood_.

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**But for the Grace **

**Chapter Two**

_Memory spell. Memory spell. Memory spell._

It wasn't easy negotiating the streets of Palo Alto one-handed while being sure to maintain a unfamiliar and badly looked-after gun levelled at your brother, but luckily Dean had a lot of experience both with weapons and with handling the Impala, so he managed OK. Not so much experience with the whole threatening to shoot your brother thing, though. Hopefully he wouldn't have too much of a chance to get good at that one.

_Or a curse, maybe. That could be it. Shit._

He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he needed to get out of this town with its university and its California-ness and Dean thought maybe it was evil. Once he reached the freeway, he lowered the gun, because Sam was many things but stupid enough to jump out of a car doing seventy was not one of them. Probably.

_What else? Maybe something messed with his head, a ghost or a demon or whatever. As if he wasn't freaky enough already._

Sam was just staring forward out of the windshield, but there was this muscle twitching in his jaw and Dean knew what that meant. Sam was pissed. Not an unusual occurrence, but Dean supposed that maybe this time Sam kind of had a right. Actually, no, screw Sam. Dean was the one who had woken up to find all his worldly possessions gone. Dean was the one who had had to spend all day sitting in a cramped, shiny, _silver_ goddammit Japanese car. Dean was the one who had had to come to California, where everybody was a freak and the weather was just ridiculously goddamn perfect and actually Dean was beginning to think maybe the whole state was evil.

Dean was the one who had had to look his own brother in the eye and see no spark of recognition.

_A ghost would be better. None of that magic bullshit. I'll find the son of a bitch and we'll fix this. Yeah. I ain't no freakin curse-breaker._

"Do you know what the penalties for kidnapping are in California?" Sam asked suddenly, his words slightly slurred. He hadn't moved, hadn't looked at Dean. It was the first thing he'd said since they had got in the car.

Dean shrugged. Typical Sam, give him a life-or-death situation and he wanted to argue freakin legal codes. "They force me to sit in a little room with your sorry ass the rest of my life?"

That probably hadn't been what Sam was expecting. At any rate, his eyebrows drew down. "Do I have to remind you who's doing the forcing here?"

Dean snorted. "Hey, you're the one who seems to think it's a good plan to smart off to a guy with a gun." Even as he said it, he wished he hadn't. He knew that for the time being, he had to let Sam believe he was willing to hurt him, but the more he played the part, the harder it would be to convince Sam when it came down to it.

_We're gonna have to go back there. Shit. I don't think I even remember the name of the town._

Sam was quiet for a long moment, and then he said, "Do I know you?"

Dean almost drove into a ditch.

He took a long breath, flexing his hands on the steering wheel _at least the freakin car's ok_. "Why're you asking?" he said carefully, because he knew it was a precarious situation. Sam's head was messed up and he didn't trust Dean, and if Dean didn't step carefully, if he did what he wanted to and shook Sam and screamed at him that of course they knew each other, they'd slept in the same goddamn room for eighteen years and how the hell, how the _hell_ could Sam have just forgotten him, if he did that then Sam would think he was a nutjob, and maybe he was.

Sam shrugged. "You kinda act like you know me. And your voice is... familiar."

_It freakin well should be. _Dean risked a glance at Sam, feeling a little spark of relief, of control. Maybe whatever this was, it was starting to wear off. Which was good, great, goddamn freakin fantastic, the best news he'd heard all day. It wasn't going to stop him hunting down the thing that did this to his little brother, though. "We've met a couple times," he said, trying to sound indifferent.

Sam slouched a little lower in the seat, rubbing his face, his movements slightly sloppy. Dean wondered just how much he had had to drink. It wouldn't take much anyway. Sam could handle his booze about as well as a fourteen-year-old priest's daughter.

"I don't remember," Sam said, and then he suddenly glanced sharply at Dean. "Oh, hey, listen, man, sometimes I... I get kind of weird and I do... stuff... and I don't remember. Look, if I did something... I'm really sorry, honestly I am, you don't need to do this. You can just drop me off somewhere and I promise I won't say anything to the police."

Dean tried to understand what he was hearing. _Sometimes I get kind of weird_ – that was pretty much a ridiculous understatement, but it wasn't what was bothering Dean, because Sam had said he _didn't remember_, and that was whacked out to hell and back. Sam had always had a goddamn near perfect memory, which had pretty much pissed Dean off a lot of the time, but he had to admit it came in handy. Sam didn't forget stuff. Well, except the shtriga thing, but he had just been a kid then.

Oh, and _Dean's entire freakin life_.

_When I find the thing that did this, I'm gonna kill it so hard. Then I'm gonna find a resurrection spell just so I can kill it again._

"Hey," said Sam, and Dean glanced over at him to see he was looking pale and sweaty. "Hey, mister, pull over."

"What for?" Dean asked, feeling pretty fucking crappy about the fact that his brother had just addressed him as _mister_.

"I think I'm gonna throw up."

Dean looked again, sharply this time, because this was a trick, right, it had to be, except that Sam's breath really had reeked pretty strongly of spirits and he was beginning to look kind of green now, hunched over and holding his stomach.

Oh yeah, and if Sam puked, he wasn't going to puke in some over-engineered little runabout or whatever the damn thing was. He was going to puke in the Impala.

Dean pulled over.

Sam had his hand on the handle and was out of the door before Dean had even shut off the engine, but he wasn't retching on the verge. He was running.

Dean swore, and then he was running too, running across the dark, uneven ground after the shadow that he knew was his brother. He was running, and Dean Winchester was fast, always had been, Dean Winchester was pretty goddamn amazing at running, but Sam had outpaced him for the first time when he was sixteen and had finally grown into all that height, and the kid hadn't looked back since. Sam had a headstart and longer legs, but on the other hand, Sam was wasted, really freakin wasted Dean realised now as he watched his brother's shadowy figure move across the bare ground, Sam's arms and legs were flailing, uncoordinated, and there was nothing of the steady determination that Sam usually showed when he ran. Dean hadn't slept for nearly twenty-four hours, but he was used to pushing through all that crap, the aches and pains and the stupid goddamn emotions or whatever. Dean was used to running on empty. Sam, it seemed, was not used to running drunk (and there was no reason he should be, freakin buzzkill that he was), and for a moment Dean thought he was going to close the gap between them.

Dean stumbled, and the moment passed.

He struggled to his feet and realised with sickening clarity that he was going to lose his brother, out here in the middle of nowhere, lose Sam in the dark, and the next time he went back to Palo Alto for him, the police would be waiting. And wasn't that just goddamn wonderful.

_They'll probably lock me up in the nuthouse. Like it's _me_ that's the crazy one._

Then there was a curse and a thud, and Sam went down, hitting the ground hard with a crack that Dean knew from experience was the sound of a skull connecting with something too solid to be pretty. He sprinted the last few feet, and flung himself on top of his brother, hoping that his weight would be enough to keep Sam down in his state of inebriation or, you know, total fucking wastedness.

For a moment, all Dean could hear was his own harsh breathing echoing in his ears. Then Sam shifted under him and said, "You gonna shoot me?" He sounded weirdly distant, like he didn't really care one way or the other.

Dean snorted. Sam was OK. He hadn't lost him. The sudden loss of adrenaline made him feel kind of nauseous, though. "Maybe later. Don't do that again, OK?"

"Not likely," Sam said, his breath stuttering a little. "I think my ankle's broken."

"Shit," said Dean. There wasn't much else to say.

----

By the time Dean had managed to get Sam back to the Impala, his brother was barely able to stand even on his good leg. He hung off Dean's neck like a freakin anvil or whatever, but Dean had to admit to himself that the weight was kind of comforting. Sam was banged up and out of it, but he was _there_, and his memory was coming back, and if Dean had his brother and his car he knew he could fix whatever was wrong.

He hauled Sam into the back seat and pushed him down, flipping on the light. Sam actually looked pretty freakin terrible. Dean hadn't seen him in full light since the whole memory thing had happened, and he looked weird, hollowed-out maybe, not to mention the blood matted in his hair and streaked on his face, both from the gash that Dean could only surmise he had obtained in a bar fight, and the more serious one on the back of his head from the fall.

"Well, aren't you the pretty one," Dean muttered, and went to fetch the first aid kit.

It was dark at the back of the car, not much traffic around at this hour of the morning, and those headlights that did come by only served to blind him. He had to open the trunk more or less by touch, but that was OK. It wasn't the first time Dean had fetched stuff from his trunk in the dark. He felt for the edge of the false bottom, groping around a bit in the darkness and then lifting it open, reaching inside to grab a flashlight or the first-aid kit, whichever came to hand first.

Except that when he put his hand into the lower compartment, there was nothing there. Not just no first-aid kit, but nothing at all. Dean scrabbled for a moment, running his fingers from one end of the compartment to the other, and they met not one single obstacle.

_Fuck_.

Sam was still sprawled on the seat when Dean came back round, and his eyes were closed. Dean wasn't really in the mood for pleasantries though. OK, even less so than usual. He leaned forward, grabbed his brother's lapels, and shook him.

"Sam," he hissed. "What the hell did you do with the goddamn weapons?"

Sam opened his eyes and stared up at him, looking kind of confused and unfocussed, and Dean caught another blast of alcohol breath. Did he smell like that when he'd been drinking? No wonder Sam was always so pissed at him.

"The weapons, Sam, the weapons. Where are they?"

"Uh..." Sam made a weird sort of gesture. "You're the one with the gun, dude. I didn't do anything with it." Dean glared at him, but although Sam was acting weird and different and _wrong_, he was still Sam, and Dean could still tell when he was really confused and when it was just for show.

_Jesus._

Dean felt his legs go weak. Sam hadn't just forgotten _him_. Sam had forgotten his entire life, and what the hell had been put in its place? Dean sat back, kneeling on the back seat with one knee on each side of his brother's ridiculous lanky legs. Sam raised himself up on his elbows and looked at Dean curiously, though he still looked kind of spacy.

"I remember," he said, and Dean thought for a moment he meant it, but then he carried on and the little hope that Dean had clung to slipped away.

"I remember where I've heard your voice before," Sam said, and his words were definitely slurred now, his voice thick. "You're the one who left those freaky voice mail messages on my... on my phone, aren't you?"

Dean closed his eyes. He didn't have the strength to deny it.

"Man, you know, you're kind of a weirdo."

Dean considered this. He knew it was true, of course: after all, he had spent his entire freakin life (well, apart from the first four years, and let's face it he wasn't really _Dean_ then, because back then there wasn't a _Sam_) hunting after the sort of things that most people stopped believing in when they were five. Only Dean had _started_ believing in them then, started believing in earnest. And now, here he was, officially dead, covered in scars from werewolves and ghouls and whatever the hell else, having a conversation about missing weapons with his brother who was only semi-coherent and wouldn't even remember Dean's name even if he had been fully compos goddamn mentis, who had clearly had his brain messed with by something unnatural and seemed to remember an entire life that had never happened. Yeah, OK, Dean was kind of a weirdo.

But Sam was worse.

"What--" Dean said, and his dry tongue stumbled over the words, so he cleared his throat and started again. "What does your dad do, Sam?"

Sam let out a harsh laugh. "Rots, mainly."

"Jeez," Dean muttered, more at the tone of Sam's voice than the sentiment. After all, he knew Dad wasn't dead.

"What?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "No apology? Oh, I guess you don't have to worry about tact when you're a freakin kidnapper, right?"

Dean snorted. "Shut up, geek boy. What did he do when he was alive?"

Sam lay back down on the seat and laughed again. He sounded kind of hysterical. "He was an alcoholic mechanic. Or a mechanical alcoholic. Nice ring to it, huh? Yeah, he pretty much rotted when he was alive, too."

"He didn't--" Dean cleared his throat again. "He didn't _hunt_?"

Sam stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing for real, just for a moment before he winced and clutched at his head. "Oh, Jesus," he said. "Man, the idea of John Winchester with a rifle is pretty damn scary. No-one would make it out of the woods alive except the goddamn deer."

Dean had a sudden urge to slap Sam, to tell him to stop talking about their father that way, to call John's voice mail and force him to listen. But things were way out of control, and something had really messed up Sam's head, and the fact that Sam was drunk and most likely concussed meant that Dean figured this what not the best time to tell him that all his memories were fake. Instead he just swore and clambered out of the back seat.

"You know, I always hated this goddamn car," Sam said idly. His legs were hanging out car door, and one of them swung like he was ten years old. "You can just take it if you want. You can, like, sell it or something. Or drive it. Or whatever. You know," he made a broad gesture with his arm, "just leave me here. I'll be OK. I'll walk back to town. I like walking. It's. You know. Cool."

Dean stared. "Sam, number one it's fifty freakin miles back to town, and number two you broke your freakin ankle, remember?"

Sam frowned. "Huh," he said. "Guess that's why my head hurts, then."

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. Sam was making about as much goddamn sense as a movie by that guy, what was his name, Swedish guy, black and white shit. Anyway. No goddamn sense at all, that was for damn sure. It was time to get off the road.

----

Dean was glad that their motel room was away off at the far side of the parking lot where there were no lights, and glad that it was still dark when they arrived there, because Sam was boneless and noisy and huge and sprawling and goddamn _conspicuous_ as he hauled him the few feet from the car to the room. The kid had been in and out of consciousness for the last half hour in the car, and his mumbling was pretty much the kind of thing that Dean would have filed away for later to tease him about when he was well again, except Dean didn't know how he would take being teased by the freak who had kidnapped him. At any rate, Sam was out the moment he hit the bed, which suited Dean down to the ground since now he would finally have the chance to examine his brother's physical state.

The ankle wasn't broken, only sprained and swollen. That was kind of weird, since Sam should have known from experience the difference between the way the two injuries felt. Except, of course, as far as Sam was concerned he didn't _have_ any experience. Dean cast around the room for something to wrap it with, finally finding a spare sheet in a cupboard and tearing it into strips. Whatever had happened to their duffle bags, they were no longer in the car, and they were going to need some new clothes. That could wait till morning.

Dean filled the trash can with ice from the ice machine on the forecourt, then wrapped some in the remains of the sheet and tied it securely to Sam's leg. Then he started on the face, cleaning the gashes as well as he could with water and ripped up bedsheets. He considered going and asking for a first-aid kit at reception, but he didn't want to attract any more attention than he already had. After all, for all he knew he had been reported to the police already. The guy with a gun in the parking lot, forcing another guy into his car. He was pretty sure no-one had seen them, but nothing was ever a hundred per cent.

When he was done, he sank back into a chair and found himself just staring at Sam. It was four o'clock in the morning, and he had just had what was probably the worst freakin day of his whole freakin freakish life. The problem was, he couldn't see how it was going to get any better. No. No, it would get better. He would make it better. He would go back to that stupid hick town that was the last place he had seen his brother and his brother had really seen _him_, and he would find the goddamn thing that did this and he would _make_ it give Sam back.

He was Dean Winchester, and he was not giving up without a fight.


	3. Chapter 3

Supernatural's not mine, you know.

Many, many thanks to carocali, Spooky-Girl, MistyEyes, Evergreene, sasha2002 and PadfootObsessed329 for their kind reviews. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it so far. But let me know if you have any criticisms, OK? I'm very thick-skinned. Also, I haven't seen the latest ep yet, so on the offchance that any of you were planning on mentioning spoilers in the comments, please don't! Thanks so much :).**  
**

**---- **

**But for the Grace, Chapter 3**

_You're my brother, and I'd die for you_.

Dean hadn't meant to fall asleep, but at some point he had. It was pretty freakin irritating actually, because he _knew_ he was asleep, and what's more he knew he was in a really uncomfortable position in the crappy motel chair, but he couldn't quite make himself wake up.

_Do I know you?_

If that wasn't enough, he kept having the same stupid dream, over and over again. It was only a few minutes long, and it had repeated what felt like a thousand times now. God, it was emo. Dean knew he shouldn't be having emo dreams, that was Sam's bag. If Dean dreamt at all, he dreamt about manly things, like cars and chicks. Sometimes chicks in cars. There was that kind of disturbing dream with him and the Impala that was definitely X-rated, but Dean didn't want to admit even to himself that he enjoyed it when it came, so he wrote it off as the product of spending far too much time on the road.

_You're my brother, and I'd die for you_.

_Oh, for Christ's sake, Sammy, stop saying that_. It was nice the first time, if kind of melodramatic, but honestly, the surprise was pretty much ruined by now.

_Do I know you?_

_Jesus_. Yeah, yeah, he knew it was coming, but it still seemed to get him every time. The change in Sam's face, from that kind of lame half-smile to blankness and confusion, and Dean felt totally lost all over again. Emotions were pretty much dumb. Dreams too. What the hell was the point of them anyway? (Well, apart from the Impala dream, there was definitely a point to that. What? Everyone knew he was a pervert anyway, might as well admit it.)

_You're my brother and I'd die for you_.

OK, you know what? Time to wake up.

This time, Dean succeeded in pulling himself out of his useless sleep. Weak light was filtering through the dusty blinds. Sam was still passed out on the bed, on top of the covers, fully clothed apart from his shoes and socks. Dean remembered the way he had woken up the morning before and grinned to himself. _You see, Sammy? When your brother's too out of it to help himself, you gotta at least take his shoes off. It's common courtesy._

His smile faded as he realised that he had fallen asleep without doing anything to restrain Sam. He was pretty sure he would have woken if Sam had tried to move, especially given the sprained ankle and the clumsiness Sam had been displaying lately, but all the same, if he had been wrong the consequences wouldn't have borne thinking about. Not much he could do about curse-breaking or kicking evil spirit ass if he was stuck in jail. Plus, the whole legally dead suspected murderer thing would definitely cramp his style when it came to dealing with the cops.

Dean stretched out his cramped muscles and watched his brother thoughtfully for a few minutes. Then he made a plan.

----

When he got back, Sam was awake and glaring. That was not a problem, though. Glaring, Dean could handle. Besides, it was pretty goddamn funny.

"You tied me up," Sam said accusingly, his voice kind of raspy still.

"Just a little bondage fun in the morning, Sammy boy," Dean said. This may have been a pretty shitty situation, but tying his brother's wrists to the bedposts with strips of sheet had seemed a pretty fucking awesome way both of solving the flight risk problem and of pissing Sam off, and he was damned if he wasn't going to enjoy that while he could. Being a kidnapper had some perks.

Sam tugged feebly on his restraints. "I've got freakin rope burn," he complained.

Dean's grin widened. "I can help you with that," he said, reaching into the bag he carried and pulling out a pair of handcuffs. He dangled them from one finger. "Got you a gift."

Sam's face darkened, then a moment later his eyes widened and he looked very nervous. "You're not going to... You're not...?"

Dean stared at him for a moment, trying to work out what he was trying to say. Sam's eyes travelled to the handcuffs. Dean got it (a little _too_ quickly, but then his mind always was in the gutter), and snorted.

"Relax. Incest is totally not my style."

Sam's brow creased. "What?"

Dean cleared his throat hurriedly. Shit. "Uh... I'm not gay, dude. I go for hot chicks. You know? With breasts and stuff." Great. Real smooth, Dean.

Sam was staring, as well he might. Dean just shook his head. He was freakin lame.

Eventually, Sam looked away, then said, "People are gonna come looking for me."

Dean dropped the bag down on the chair and pulled out his coffee. "They won't find you. Believe me, I'm freakin excellent at hide and go seek."

Sam's mouth twitched. He looked glum. Well, yeah, but Sam pretty much looked glum all the time, like that was his default expression or something, so that didn't mean anything.

"Listen," he said, "I don't know what you think you know about me, but I'm not rich. I've got fifty dollars in my wallet and maybe two-fifty in my account, you can have it, whatever. I don't have any family. No-one can pay you."

_Jesus_. Dean swallowed a mouthful of coffee and suddenly hated being a kidnapper again. He wanted to reassure Sam, but what could he say? "Money and sex, Sam? That all you can think about? I thought _I_ was meant to be the shallow one."

Sam's head jerked. "Then what the hell do you want with me?"

Dean sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face, then moved to sit on the bed. "Look at me, Sam."

Sam kept his face determinedly turned away, but Dean grabbed his chin and forced him to meet his eyes. Sam expression was defiant, but scared too.

"Listen," Dean said quietly, "I need you to trust me, OK? I don't want to hurt you. I'm doing this to help you. Everything's messed up and... if I told you about it you wouldn't believe me, but I'm gonna fix it, OK? You've just gotta work with me here."

Sam stared at him, but his expression didn't change. Dean sighed.

"I'm gonna untie you, OK? If you pull anything, I'll kick your ass."

Sam snorted. "People who want someone to trust them don't usually threaten them with violence."

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, well, I'm special." He untied one of Sam's wrists, and handed him a bottle of aspirin. "Thought you might need these."

Sam glared, but he manipulated the lid off the bottle one-handed and swallowed a couple dry. Dean untied his other wrist. "Come on, kiddo. We gotta get going."

"Where are we going?" Sam asked, rubbing his wrists. Dean planned to put the handcuffs on him in the car, once they were away from prying eyes.

_I don't freakin know. Wherever that shithole was where this all started. _"If I told you that, I'd have to kill you." It was meant to be a joke, but Dean knew as soon as he'd said it that it was a bad one. Sam's face shut down even more. Well, at least that might mean no more goddamn annoying Sammy questions.

No such luck. Sam was already opening his mouth again. "Are you at least gonna tell me your name?"

Dean stopped, his hand on the doorknob. He felt cold, and hot, and really fucking unpleasant. _My name was the first goddamn thing you ever said, back when you didn't even know your own. _"It's Dean."

"Dean what?"

_Winchester. Oh, hey, coincidence, huh? _"Just Dean."

He was just Dean now. Just Dean until Sam was just Sam again.

----

Dean figured he would just drive east, following the route he had come by until he found the town again. It kind of bothered him that he couldn't remember the name at all; then again, they had only been there for the night, on the way to somewhere else. It had had a bar and a run-down motel. The bar had had a smokin hot barmaid. Dean had woken up, and Sam had been gone. That was pretty much it. Sam would remember, he always remembered stupid shit like that. Except Sam wasn't so hot on remembering stuff these days.

Maybe some of the memory spell or whatever the hell the damn thing was had rebounded onto Dean. Dean was pretty sure he remembered his entire life. But then, Sam seemed pretty sure he remembered a life too, and whatever life it was he remembered, it was not the same as the one Dean had in his mind.

The thought that hit Dean then was so incredibly uncool that he thought he might just have to puke, and he decided if he was going to then he would be sure and do it on Sam's lap. The little bastard deserved it. Plus, the upholstery.

What if actually it was Dean who had had a different life implanted in his memory? What if he had imagined the whole thing, his life with Dad and Sam, the hunting, the demon and Mom? But that didn't make any sense. Why would someone take a guy like him and try to convince him that he was some stranger's brother, when the stranger didn't know him from Adam? What would be the point? All the same, suddenly he wasn't so sure, because he knew _something_ was fucked up, and he was the one who didn't seem to fit. But he thought he knew a way he could be sure, or more sure anyway. He cleared his throat.

"Uh, Sam?"

Sam was looking out of the window, looking tired and hungover and pissed off. He hadn't said a word since they had left the motel. Apart from the hungover part, it was pretty much like having the old Sammy back. "What?"

"What about your mom?"

Sam turned his face slightly. "What about her?"

"She alive?"

"No," Sam said. "She died when I was a baby."

Dean hesitated, but he had to know. "How'd she die?"

"There was a fire," said Sam.

Dean never thought he'd be so relieved to hear that story. But the facts matched, and this Sam's life was not completely different from the Sam he knew. OK, so pretty freakin different, but he was back to being almost one hundred per cent certain that it was Sam's head that was messed up and not Dean's.

Almost one hundred per cent.

----

They rolled into Springfield around four, and Dean could only shake his head and stop worrying about his memory. Seemed like he'd been to fifty Springfields in his life, and he'd stopped remembering them years ago. They were all freakin shitholes, anyway. This one was no exception, but it was bigger than Dean remembered, which was good because there was no freakin way they were staying in the same motel again. For one thing, Dean had paid with a credit card that he thought had probably made its last fraudulent transaction by now and needed to be sent to the great shopping mall in the sky. For another, the motel was pretty much right next door to the car rental place he'd used, and Dean didn't know if they would recognise him and associate him with the shiny new Toyota that had probably been boosted from Jed's and sold for scrap by now (and jeez, what a fate, to be associated with a damn Toyota), but he wasn't about to take that risk.

He found another place at the opposite end of town, thinking about leaving Sam in the car, but deciding it was better to keep an eye on him. Sure, he could handcuff him to something, but the kid was resourceful even if he wasn't firing on all cylinders right now. No, safer this way. He made sure, though, to let Sam know that if there was any funny business he would find himself with a one-way ticket to see his parents. He didn't put it like that, of course. There was already lying, kidnapping (Dean wasn't sure exactly where the law stood on kidnapping your own brother, especially when he was clearly having mental problems; he thought Sam probably knew, but he wasn't about to ask him), and bondage on his list; he didn't need to add insensitivity. Well, more insensitivity.

And that was weird, too, the way he'd thought about it – _to see _his_ parents_. Dean knew he would never have even thought those words if it had been _our parents_. But that didn't make sense, because Sam was still Sam, still Dean's brother, and that meant they had the same parents, right? Except where Dean's dad was still very much alive, completely not a mechanic, and mostly not an alcoholic. It was weird. It was hard to get it all straight in his head.

It was kind of fucked up.

"One room, two queens," he said, grinning at the chick behind the counter. She smiled back, confident, assertive. He liked that.

"You two together?"

Dean sometimes wondered if maybe he and Sam gave off some weirdo romantic vibes. He didn't really get why people so often assumed they were an item. He generally thought it was pretty funny, but no way was he letting a hot chick go on thinking it.

"Nah," he said. "That's just my geek brother."

He paused, realising what he had said, and looked at Sam, but Sam was looking away, slouched against the wall keeping his weight off his ankle, and he didn't react at all. And why would he? What Dean had said didn't mean anything to him. Just another lie to add to the list.

"What's his name?" the girl asked, as if Sam were a dog.

"Sam," Dean replied.

The girl grinned, and hot damn she was gorgeous. "Hey, Sam," she called over. "Your brother's a hotty, you know that?"

Dean felt his grin widen. Sam just scowled.

----

Once they had the keys, Dean tried without much success to help Sam hobble to the room. The ankle didn't seem to be as bad as Dean had thought the night before, which was kind of good and kind of bad, because obviously the reduced mobility was kind of a pain in the ass, but on the other hand it meant Sam was less likely to make a break for it, and Dean couldn't believe he had just sort of wished that his brother had broken his ankle for real. Jesus, that was so fucked up. Better not to even think about it.

Dean made sure Sam went to the bathroom, then handcuffed him to the bedpost, trying to do it in such a way that Sam could rest comfortably. Sam had lapsed back into silence after their exchange in the car hours earlier, and had hardly spoken since. He had picked at the burger Dean had bought him and eventually thrown it out of the window. At some point along the way, he actually had thrown up (luckily they were already parked, because no way Dean would have pulled over again), and then muttered something about being hungover. Morose didn't even begin to cover it, and what Dean had to do next was not going to make things any better. He thought about it again, trying to see if there was any other way, but he couldn't come up with anything, and so he pulled a bandanna out of his back pocket and swallowed. Tying Sam up earlier had been kind of funny, and the whole handcuffs thing was freakin inspired, but gagging his brother made him – well, it pretty much made him gag.

"I'm sorry, Sammy," he muttered, trying to tie the knot loosely so it wouldn't hurt Sam.

Sam just glared at him. It didn't look like he accepted the apology.

----

He found the bar easily enough. There were several in town, but the one they had been to that night was the seediest, most run-down joint going. Plus, there was the smokin barmaid. Dean never forgot a face. Well, OK, yeah, he forgot faces all the freakin time, but he never forgot a hot one. It was like some evolutionary super power or whatever. If he ever had kids, they were gonna be prettier than God.

Unfortunately, the barmaid (Jennifer, it turned out, 555-2194) didn't recognise the picture of Sam he handed her, or remember anything unusual happening two nights before. She was apologetic (and hot – let's not forget the hot), but she said it wasn't really that weird. It was a trucker bar, new faces every day, a punch-up every week. It took a lot to make an impression these days. Dean, now Dean made an impression.

Dean grinned, wondering if he should mention that he'd been there a couple of nights before as well, but figured he should just take the compliment as intended. Anyway, it turned out that Earl had a much better memory for these things. Earl was the other member of staff who had been on that night. He was coming in later, about nine. Dean could stay and have a drink to wait for him if he wanted.

Dean wanted. He wanted a lot. But leaving his brother alone and tied up in the motel room for the next four hours was not high on his list of admirable big-brother actions, so he made his apologies, promised to be back later, and headed back.

Sam was still sitting in the same position that Dean had left him in, facing the door and scowling like he'd just heard that his eyebrows were terminally ill and was determined to make the best use of them he could before... Actually, screw that metaphor. It kind of sucked. Anyway, despite the circumstances, Dean was weirdly buoyed up by the sight of his brother, and hurried to take of the gag. That just freed up more of Sam's face to join in with the whole scowling thing he had going. Damn, he had that expression down.

"Careful," said Dean. "If the wind changes your face might get stuck like that."

Sam muttered something that Dean didn't catch, and Dean inclined his head as if listening. "Come again?"

"I said fuck you," Sam growled, and locked eyes with Dean. "Fuck you. I don't know what you think you're trying to prove with this fucking cute act, but just drop it, OK? We're not friends. We're sure as hell not fucking brothers. You freakin kidnapped me, and I know somewhere in your fucked-up brain you've convinced yourself that you're doing it for me or whatever, but I don't see it that way, OK? So just freakin give up the let's-be-friends crap and act like the goddamn psycho you are."

Dean felt his knees weaken, and then anger flooded through him. "Jesus Christ, Sam, everything's always gotta be about you, doesn't it?"

Sam barked a laugh. "Oh wait, did I hurt your feelings? Excuse me while I beat myself up about it."

"You think this is easy for me?" Dean was shouting now. "You think I'm having a great time, tying you up and dragging your whiny ass all over the country?"

"Oh, my heart bleeds," said Sam. "Oh wait, here's an idea – if it pisses you off so much, why don't you just stop doing it? Oh, don't tell me, you're on a mission from God, or whatever it is whackos worship."

Dean opened his mouth to retort, but suddenly found he couldn't form any words. He raked his hands through his hair and turned away, not wanting to look at Sam's accusing face any more. _Fuck. Fuck._

There was a long pause, and then Sam sighed. "Jesus, I need a drink."

Dean rubbed a hand over his mouth. "OK," he whispered. "OK."

----

In theory, it was a brilliant plan. Dean needed to quiz this Earl guy, and wanted to check out the bar to see if any of the patrons looked suspicious, but he didn't want to leave Sam alone in the motel room. Sam obviously needed something to take the edge off. And hey, turned out they sold just such a substance in bars. Pretty handy places, bars. So that was how it was that when eight-thirty came around, Dean found himself seated in the emptiest corner of the bar in question opposite his little brother, ordering beer from the waitress.

"Actually," said Sam, "I'll have a tequila."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "You sure about that, Sammy? That's kind of a man's drink."

Sam glanced at him coolly. "What's your point?"

Dean swallowed, eyeing the man across the table who looked like his brother. _Jesus_, he realised, _I miss you_.

He had to win Sam's trust somehow, because this couldn't go on. Yeah, OK, eventually he was going to get Sam's memory back, and then all the threatening and forcing and cajoling would be unnecessary (well, OK, mostly unnecessary), but in the meantime, Dean wasn't sure he could bear another day of angry stares and cold words, of being _the kidnapper_, _the guy who did this to me_. OK, he didn't expect to be _the big brother_ again just like that, not till the memory thing was fixed anyway, but he needed to shoot for something better. Maybe _the friend_. Maybe just _the guy whose guts I don't totally hate_. Maybe all these mental italics were getting to him.

The drinks arrived, and Dean sipped his beer cautiously. There would be no getting drunk tonight, not after last time. "So," he started casually. "You got any brothers and sisters?"

Sam downed his tequila in one and sucked his teeth. "Nope, only child." He pointedly didn't return the question, but Dean had made up his mind to ignore Sam's grouchiness.

"I got a kid brother," he volunteered, and smiled at the memory (and again, weird, because the little freak was _sitting right there_). "He's kind of a pain in the ass."

"That's what they're supposed to be like, though, right?" Sam said, not really sounding interested. "You know, brothers and shit."

"No way, man. I mean, OK, yeah, brothers are a pain, but that's not... It's like... I dunno, he's saved my ass more times than I can count. Not as many times as I've saved his, of course." Dean grinned.

Sam shrugged with one shoulder. "Well, I hope you two are very happy together."

_Damn, if this isn't the most surreal goddamn conversation ever_, thought Dean, and drew in a breath. "Actually, he's kind of pissed at me right now," he said. "Thinks I did something really... terrible. Doesn't know I was just trying to help him." He watched Sam from under his lashes, willing him to get it, knowing that this wasn't the time to tell him (_it's never the freakin time_), but wanting him to just _know_.

Sam shrugged again. "Seems like you've got something of a habit going there. Hey," he added, this time to the waitress. "Same again, leave the bottle. He's paying." He jerked his head at Dean.

Dean subsided back into his chair. What was he expecting? Sam would hear his words and think _oh, hey, that's kind of like our situation – wait a sec, maybe I _am_ this guy's brother!_ Yeah, right.

Sam downed the next tequila as soon as it arrived, and Dean frowned. "Pace yourself, buddy, we could be here a while."

Sam snorted. "Who died and left you in charge?"

_Dad, according to you_. Dean shook his head. "I just don't want to have to haul your wasted ass back to the motel if you pass out."

"Yeah, thanks, grandma," Sam said. "Hey, tell you what, if I get drunk enough to pass out, you can just leave me here, OK? I'll catch up with you in the next town over, or whatever."

Dean frowned. Sam was obviously not going to be tractable on this issue. On the other hand, maybe he could play it to his advantage – Sam was a total lightweight, and at the speed he was drinking, he really was likely to skip straight over the annoying, difficult stage of drunkenness (which, to be honest, the few times Dean had seen it in Sam had actually been pretty cute and kind of endearing) and head straight on into unconsciousness. And that would suit Dean just fine, because he would be free then to make enquiries without having to keep too much of an eye on him. OK, then. He would let his little brother drink himself into a stupor.

This fucking sucked.

It sucked even more three hours later, when Earl still hadn't showed and Sam had consumed nine – _nine, Jesus_ -- shots of tequila, and still was hardly slurring his words. It sucked because Dean had to concede to himself that his plan had been a pretty crappy one, but it also sucked because Sam was a freakin lightweight, Dean _knew_ that that was true, he'd been travelling with Sam for months and never seen him drink more than two beers, and he was beginning to have the horrible feeling that he didn't understand what the hell had happened to his brother even half as well as he thought he had (which was pretty damn not well anyway), because OK he could see where your memory could be altered to _believe_ you could do half a bottle of José and survive it, but actual alcohol tolerance was a biological thing or whatever, right? And if his brother's _biology_ had been altered...

"Hey," said Sam, startling Dean out of his circling thoughts as he turned sharply and grabbed a passing trucker by the arm. "Watch where you're sticking your elbow, buddy."

Dean stared. The trucker was maybe an inch shorter than Sam and twice as wide, but he was holding up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Sorry, man, didn't see you."

"Well you should watch where you're fucking going then, shouldn't you," Sam said, taking a step closer.

"Yeah, OK," the trucker said, backing off.

Sam's shoulders slumped. "Goddammit," he muttered, then pulled back his arm and delivered a roundhouse punch to the trucker's face.

It happened so fast Dean didn't even have time to process it. One minute Sam was standing there having a mild disagreement, the next he was in a brawl with someone twice his size, and all his freakin gigantic buddies. Dean was round the table in a moment, grabbing hold of Sam's elbows and trying to pull him off.

"Hey, Sam, chill," he said, and got an elbow in the face that made him stagger backwards.

Sam was going all out now, and that was wrong too, just like everything else, because Sam was a precision fighter, never making a move unless he had to, sizing up the opposition and finding their weak spots, but right now he was flailing, leaning back against the bar to protect his ankle, fists going in all directions and finding their targets through blind luck and drunken strength more often than actual skill. Dean had time to take all this in before he saw a guy on Sam's blind side with a raised pool cue, and flung himself into the fray.

Dean got in some good shots, and took a couple more, at least one of them from Sam's clumsy goddamn limbs, before the sound of a shotgun being cocked made the full-scale honest-to-Bonham brawl that had developed fall suddenly still and silent. It was the barmaid, Jennifer, and she was pointing the damn thing straight at Sam.

"Out," she said. "Both of you. And next time," she added, flicking her eyes to Dean, and there was none of that come-hither shit going on now, "you can bet your ass I'll remember you."

Dean grabbed Sam by his stupid fucking shoulder and dragged him out of the bar. Sam didn't protest, but he did grab the bottle of tequila on the way out.

In the parking lot, Dean exploded. "Jesus fucking _Christ_, Sam, what the fuck was that?"

Sam leaned against a wall, fingering his split lip with one hand and clutching the tequila with the other. "Looked pretty much like a bar fight," he observed.

"Yeah, which _you started_."

Sam didn't even have the goddamn decency to look shamefaced. "That guy pushed me."

"Like hell he did. I was _there_, remember? Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed or something?"

Sam scowled. Again. "Hey, I didn't ask for this you know. You're the one who kidnapped me, I never said I was decent company."

_This again_. Dean had hoped that an evening of relaxing conversation in the bar might bring Sam round to him. Yeah, that had turned out about as well as the rest of Dean's plans recently. Turned out, he was actually pretty crappy at planning shit. He wiped his hands over his face. "I just don't get it. This isn't like you."

"You don't fucking _know_ me!" yelled Sam.

Dean closed his eyes. "No," he muttered. "I don't think I do."

They each stood there in silence for a moment, breathing heavily. Then Dean shook his head.

"We're going back to the motel," he said. "And give me that." He snatched the tequila out of Sam's hands.

"Hey," Sam yelled. "Give that back."

Dean sized him up. "Make me."

For some reason, he hadn't thought that his challenge would get a response, and the punch Sam aimed at him, though it was drunken and sloppy and almost missed, had enough force to snap his head round and make him drop the bottle in surprise. He recovered quick enough to dodge the second punch, though, and decided that, messed up head or no, enough was enough. Sam had left himself wide open, and he was beginning to stagger under the burden of tequila anyway, so a quick (and pulled) punch to the gut and a nudge to his injured ankle was all it took to send him down. He lay on the ground, gasping and spitting. Dean sighed, and then reached down to haul him up.

"I fucking hate you, you know that?" Sam muttered.

"What are you, twelve?" Dean replied, and tried to ignore the feeling that those words provoked in his gut. Once he had got Sam into the car, though, he went back for the miraculously unbroken tequila.

----

For the second night in a row, Sam was unconscious as soon as he hit the pillow, and Dean wondered if maybe this was a twisted cosmic revenge for all the times he'd wished his brother could just find it a little easier to sleep. Dean, however, was nowhere near relaxed enough to catch any zs. The night had been a total bust. Sam had gone from just sulking like the emo loser he was to actually violently, probably homicidally hating Dean's guts. There was no way he was getting any more information from that bar. And to cap it all off, all the effort he'd gone to to get Jennifer's number had gone to waste. OK, so it hadn't been that much effort, she had recognised his charms pretty much as soon as he walked in the door (he always liked the sensible ones), but still, it did not contribute to a general feeling of well-freakin-being. Damn.

After about twenty minutes of pacing, he figured he could put all this nervous energy to good use. He'd seen Sam's laptop in the car, peeking out from underneath the back seat. Usually he wasn't too hot on the whole research thing but – he glanced at Sam, whose face looked like it was going to be a mass of bruises come morning and serve him the hell right too – OK, someone had to do it.

It wasn't until he came back into the room with the laptop that he remembered he'd left his car key on top of the dresser. Which was weird, because he'd just found it in his pocket. He pulled it out again and examined it – yup, it was his, the main key, not the spare. Except there was no troll on the key chain.

Dean turned around very slowly, feeling the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. There on the dresser lay the car key. The main one, not the spare. With a pink-haired troll on the key chain.

Dean stood there for a moment staring, and then sat down carefully at the table and opened the laptop. His fingers were definitely _not_ shaking as he typed in the words _Dean Winchester, Lawrence, Kansas_ into the search box. Yeah, OK, so he was looking for his birth certificate, but that was just to convince Sam when the time came for Sam to need convincing, not because he was worried or anything, the key thing was just a mix-up, right? Right.

Minutes later, he let out a sigh of relief. There it was in black and white: _Dean Winchester, son of John and Mary. Born Lawrence, Kansas, 1979_.

Well, that was OK then. Except that there was something else on the page underneath the scan of the birth certificate. Dean scrolled down and then stopped, his fingers hovering over the keys. _Dean Winchester, son of John and Mary. Died Lawrence, Kansas, 1983_.

Dean swallowed, and clicked _back_. The second link on the page was to a newspaper article, and he opened it, feeling bile begin to rise in his throat. _Fire kills mother and toddler in Lawrence, father and infant son survive. _The date of the article was November 3, 1983. Yup, there it was, in black and white.

"It says I'm dead, Sammy," Dean whispered to his sleeping brother. "It says I'm dead."


	4. Chapter 4

Supernatural ain't mine, friends and neighbours.

Lots of thanks and love to sasha2002, rc, bally2cute, PadfootObsessed329, AHR, the Cat's Whiskers, Dean's Girl, carocali, Joou Himeko Dah, Elemental-Animal (x2), Evergreene, MistyEyes, annibal, Kale and teal lover for all their kind words. Extra special thanks to Faye Dartmouth for hounding me until I got this written ;).

rc: I'm glad you enjoyed my other fics! I don't have a beta, since I generally prefer to work alone. But I always appreciate constructive criticism.

bally2cute: I think you might get your wish in this chapter, at least to some extent...

On with the show!

**---- **

**But for the Grace, Chapter 4**

_Wrong. Wrong. This is all wrong._

Dean wasn't sure exactly what he had been doing for the last couple of hours, but apparently it was now two in the morning. The laptop screensaver glowed softly. Sam was still out, absolutely still on top of the covers like he was dead. Except it wasn't him that was dead.

_Dean_ was dead.

_No, that's wrong. I'm not dead. No freakin way._

OK, so he had seen plenty of dead people, right? And not in a Haley Joel kind of way either, he had actually seen them and felt them and they were freakin weird, right? They didn't just wander round like normal human beings, hanging out and drinking beer and kidnapping their brothers. Right? Right?

Dean found himself in front of the bathroom mirror, staring. He _looked_ alive. No melodramatic white clothing, skin had plenty of colour, bruise coming on on one cheek – yeah, ghosts didn't bruise, of course they didn't, bruising had something to do with blood or whatever and ghosts didn't have blood because they weren't flesh, they were freakin _dead_. No way Dean was dead, no way.

He had a death certificate, though.

On the other hand, he reminded himself, death certificates didn't mean anything. In fact, Dean Winchester had had a death certificate since back in St. Louis, and all that meant was that some psychotic evil thing had decided to look like him for a bit (which, who could blame it, really?). Plus, if the death certificate and the newspaper article were telling the truth, he had supposedly died when he was four, so if he was a ghost why the hell would he be the ghost of a ruggedly handsome twenty-six year old with the memory of an entire life that had never been lived? No, it didn't make sense that he was dead. So there was an explanation for this. There had to be. All he had to do was calm down, sit down, and think.

OK, so for the last couple days everything had been shot to hell. Sam didn't remember him, and Sam was _different_, he was belligerent and bitter and Dean had the feeling that not all of that came from being kidnapped. Sam remembered a life without Dean, a life with no supernatural things, with a mother who just died in a fire and a father who...

_Shit_.

Dean had his cell phone out of his pocket in no time flat, and had hit the speed dial. The phone rang for too long before a woman's voice answered, sounding kind of pissed at being woken up. _Well, screw you, lady, because no way are you having as bad a night as me_. And it just got worse, because she'd never heard of a John Winchester, and when Dean asked her how long she'd had the number the answer had the phone sliding out of his numb fingers to the floor.

_Five years._

_Five freakin years._

_Dad's dead_, Dean thought frantically, even though it didn't make any sense, none of it. _Dad's dead. _I'm _dead. What the _hell_ is going on round here?_

Somehow he lost another hour or so just sitting there doing nothing, and when he finally roused himself, his eyes strayed to the bottle of tequila that stood innocently on the dresser next to the goddamn car key that wasn't supposed to exist. _You've caused me a lot of trouble today, goddamn Mexican gutrot_, he thought severely. _Least you can do now is help out_.

A couple of pulls on the bottle meant that Dean's hands were steady enough to type again. It was some godforsaken hour of the morning, and everything was wrong. It wasn't just Sam that was broken: it was reality. Dean was the only one who could remember what it was supposed to be like, and that meant it was up to him to fix it. How he was going to do that, he had no idea, but he was starting here and now with half a bottle of tequila and a silver laptop that looked oddly naked without the decals Dean had bought for it months before.

----

It was almost eight o'clock before Sam surfaced, groaning slightly and then tensing as he saw Dean watching him. He looked like shit. Dean figured he didn't look much better, having been up all night (and spent a good portion of it wondering if actually maybe he was, y'know, _dead_), but he definitely felt better than Sam looked. He had had a long time to think, and he had made a plan. OK, so he had pretty much noticed that his plans all went to shit when he didn't have anyone to bounce them off, plus this plan was kind of lame, since it tailed off fairly shortly after getting Sam to tell him _exactly_ what was different between their two sets of memories in the hope of finding some clue as to what the hell had happened, but he had something to focus on other than the feeling of fear in the pit of his stomach, and that was good enough for him.

"Here," he said, crossing to the bed and handing over a cup of coffee and the bottle of aspirin. Sam looked at him with a hint of suspicion, then sighed and took the items with the hand that wasn't chained to the bed. He sat up awkwardly, swallowed the pills, took a pull on the coffee, and then set the cup down, his eyes never leaving Dean. Dean returned to his chair and sat down. He wondered how to get Sam talking.

"Tell me about your life," he said. Oh yeah, that would totally work. He sounded like a total loser.

Sam looked briefly startled, then frowned. "What is this, story hour?"

"Just tell me," said Dean. Still sounded like a loser. Needed to come up with some better lines.

Sam watched him for a moment, then turned his face away. "What do you want me to say?" he asked. "I was born. My mom died. I went to school. My dad died. I went to college. My... I got car-jacked by some crazy guy. The rest, as they say, is history."

OK, that wasn't exactly the life story Dean had been hoping for. _Remind me never to ask you to write my eulogy_. He needed to break through somehow. "Where were you born?" asked Dean. Easy questions first, questions he knew the answer to. A warm-up.

"Lawrence, Kansas," said Sam. "But I only lived there six months. We moved right after Mom died."

OK, so that was kind of the same, but different too. In Dean's world – No, that was a weird way of putting it. Hm. OK, _the way Dean remembered it_, they had stuck around in Lawrence for about a year after the fire, until John had learned all he needed to to start on the trail of the demon.

"Where did you go then?"

Sam met Dean's eyes again. "Why do you want to know all this?" he asked, and he didn't seem angry for once, just confused.

Dean shrugged. "I'm curious. You're stuck with me. I'm gonna keep asking till you tell me, so you might as well get it over with."

"You can't make me tell you anything."

"Wanna bet?"

"I don't understand what it is you want," Sam said, almost as if talking to himself. He took another swig of the coffee, and Dean thought he wasn't going to answer the question, but then he suddenly said, "I don't know where we went. We moved all over. I don't really remember the names of any of the places. Dad would get a job at a garage, and six months later he'd fuck it up, come in late and hungover too many times, so we'd move."

OK, that pretty much sounded like Dad too. Except for the garage thing. And the drinking thing. Plus, no demon hunting. What was it Sam had said once? _A little more tequila, a little less demon hunting. _OK, he was _so_ not letting his brain go there. Time to think of a new question.

"Did he ever..." Dean stopped. Getting into the hard questions now. "Did he ever say anything about your mom?" He was pretty sure, what with the timing and the fire and everything, that Mom had died the same way he knew she had, but Sam didn't seem to know a thing about the supernatural, and obviously it had been different somehow, or Dean would be alive. _Which I am_.

Sam stared at his coffee cup. "Sometimes he'd tell me she was beautiful," he said, and was Dean imagining it, or was there a hint of wistfulness in that tone? Maybe this Sam wasn't so different after all.

Dean cleared his throat. "Uh... actually, I meant did he talk about how she died?"

Sam glanced over at him and frowned. "No, never. They said it was faulty wiring."

_Yeah, they said that to us, too. It was as lame then as it is now._

"Must have been rough," Dean said. "All the moving and shit. Did Dad... did your dad look after you OK?"

Sam let out a bitter laugh. "I guess, if by _OK_ you mean most of the time he earned enough for us to have a couple of meals a day with a bottle of vodka for him for dessert."

Dean sat back and closed his eyes for a moment. His father had always loved him and Sam, he knew that, had always wanted to keep them safe. But somehow, he'd often forgotten that safety didn't just come from blowing away the ghoul in the closet or dumping salt on the windowsills, that food and clothes and a place to live were part of it too. Sometimes, when Dean had had to go to the kitchen to tell Dad that they were out of formula and Sammy was hungry, and had found him hunched over a map or making furious notes from a dusty book, he had wished that Dad didn't have his revenge quest, because then maybe he would focus only on Dean and Sam. Of course, straight after that thought that he had always felt like a sorry son of a bitch, disloyal to Mom, because of course finding her killer was important, more important than remembering every little domestic duty, and anyway, Dad had Dean there to help him out, so they were gonna be OK, right? Over the years, he had trained those thoughts out of his conscious mind altogether. But now, it seemed like Sam had had that childhood, the one with no revenge, no hunting, even no Dean, nothing for Dad to focus on except Sam. And John had just found something else to distract himself with. And this time, Dean hadn't been there to help out.

OK, well, enough dwelling. This whole thing wasn't real anyway, so it didn't matter what Sam remembered Dad doing. It hadn't really happened.

"Um, how about school?" Dean was trying to think of other questions to ask, because he really didn't freakin feel like asking the one he knew was coming.

Sam shrugged. "I went. Didn't learn much. Every place had a different curriculum."

"Must have done OK to get into Stanford," Dean observed.

"Once I learned how to read and was old enough to get to the library by myself, I was fine," Sam said flatly.

"OK," said Dean. He glanced around the room, trying to think of something else to ask, anything except what was really on his mind. No such luck. He was just going to have to bite the goddamn bullet. "So, uh..." He cleared his throat. "Your dad... How'd he die?"

Sam's head jerked round sharply. "Jesus," he said. "What the fuck do you want to know that for?"

Dean just shrugged. "Does it matter? I'm a psycho, remember?"

Sam looked away, then looked back at something over Dean's shoulder. "If you really want me to talk about this shit, you're gonna have to give me a little help," he said.

"What're you talking about?" Dean asked, glancing back. The bottle of tequila stood on the dresser behind him, now only a quarter full.

"Care to share?" said Sam, with a twisted smile.

Dean sighed. If he was honest with himself, the little buzz he had gotten off the tequila was beginning to leave his system, and he could do with a pick-me-up too. Drinking in the morning was never a good thing. But then, quizzing your amnesiac brother about the death of the father you _knew_ was still alive wasn't the greatest of freakin shakes either. "Hair of the dog?"

Sam's smile twisted a little more. "Something like that."

Dean nodded, reached for the bottle and took a swig, before getting up and handing it to Sam. Sam took a long pull, then set it down on the night stand next to the coffee. His hands were trembling slightly. He didn't say anything though. The little bastard was going to make Dean repeat the question. Goddamn.

"How did your dad die," Dean said insistently, and hated himself.

Sam cleared his throat. "He killed himself."

OK, so Dean hadn't really known what to expect, but it wasn't that. No freakin way. That was crap. "You know that for sure?"

Sam stared at him. "What the fuck does that mean?"

Dean shook his head. "Nothing. Carry on."

Sam reached out and took another swallow of tequila. "There was no note or anything, but I wouldn't have found one anyway. There was nothing left."

Damn, this was kind of confusing. Dean wondered if he should interrupt Sam to ask him what the hell he was going on about, but Sam didn't even seem to be talking to him any more. He was _talking_, though, and that was what Dean wanted (and _damn_, if he hadn't just spent the last half hour trying to get Sam to talk about his _feelings_, Jesus, he was never going to live this down), so he just left it alone and let Sam carry on, hoping he would catch up eventually.

"The house was gone," Sam said. "They never found the body. The firefighters said he must have fallen asleep with a lit cigarette, but I know he did it on purpose."

"Wait a second," Dean said, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. "Your dad died in a _fire_?" That was _not_ good. "What makes you think he started it himself?"

"Because it started in my room." Sam's voice was so quiet Dean had to hold his breath to hear it. "I was fifteen. He'd been gone three days, and I knew we were going to be moving again soon. And then I woke up, and there was just... fire... everywhere. If he'd fallen asleep, he would have been in his room or on the couch." He suddenly snorted and wiped the back of his hand over his face. "He'd been killing himself for years, anyway. This way was just faster."

_It started in my room_. Well, that pretty much sealed that. The demon that killed Mom wasn't exactly the most original hell-beast out there. But Sam obviously didn't know the first thing about it. The goddamn idiot thought his dad (_his _dad) had set his room on fire on purpose. Which, hang on, that meant he thought...

"Sam, you think your dad was trying to kill you too?" Dean asked, horrified. This wasn't just a shift in reality, this was some crazy alterna-world deal.

"No," said Sam, too loudly. "No. I don't think he was thinking at all. He'd just been on a three-day bender. God," he added, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. "Why the hell am I telling you all this crap?"

Dean didn't really have an answer to that. To be honest, he was pretty freakin amazed Sam was speaking to him at all. "You should eat something," he offered, gesturing at a paper bag that sat on the nightstand. "I brought you breakfast."

Sam glanced at it and made a face. "I'm not hungry."

They sat in silence for a minute or two. Dean was trying to digest what he had found out. Sam thought the demon that killed Mom killed Dad too, which meant that actually, it probably _had_ gone down that way in this bizarro world. Except no, that's not what Sam thought, because Sam didn't know anything about the demon. It was what _Dean_ thought. Except Dean knew the demon hadn't killed Dad, because Dean had seen Dad a few weeks ago.

Jesus, he was getting a headache.

But he was getting somewhere, though he wasn't sure exactly where it was yet. He had to keep Sam talking.

"You're a pretty lucky guy," he said, saying the first thing that entered his head. "Surviving two fires like that."

"Three," said Sam, so quietly that Dean almost thought he hadn't heard it at all. But he _had_ heard it, and he remembered Sam's old apartment building in Palo Alto, still under renovation after being damaged by a fire, and filed that piece of information away for later.

Sam took another swig of tequila. The bottle was almost empty. Dean removed it from the night stand, and Sam didn't protest.

"So what happened after that?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. "Went to a couple of foster homes. Got into Stanford. Was thinking about applying to law school before some bastard kidnapped me."

Dean ignored the last part. There was something else that didn't quite fit. "But didn't you... I mean, shouldn't you have already applied last year?"

Sam stared at him, and Dean shifted uncomfortably, setting the bottle down on the dresser. "I mean, you're old enough to have graduated now, right?"

Sam looked away again. "Yeah, well, I took some time off."

"OK," said Dean, feeling suddenly tired. He didn't want to ask any more questions. The answers he had already received were upsetting enough. He dropped back into the chair and stared at his hands, because _now_ was the part of the plan that he hadn't really finished yet, the part where Sam told him his life story and Dean immediately was able to identify some chink, something that would give him a freakin clue, would tell him what to do next. But there was nothing. Just a mental image that wouldn't go away of Sam waking up in a room where their father was burning to death. And damn, that was _not_ something you wanted to be thinking about when you were trying to eat your breakfast.

The silence stretched out. Sam pulled his legs back up onto the bed, wincing a little as his ankle snagged on the covers. Dean slouched back in the chair, lost in thought. Somewhere, a clock was ticking, making the silence seem even louder, and Dean wished it would just shut the hell up. Then finally, Sam spoke again.

"Why'd you want to know all that stuff?" he asked, head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

OK, Sammy question time. Well, two could play at that game. "Why'd you start that barfight, sparky?"

Sam didn't answer. After a while, he said, "My dad was in Vietnam, you know. He was a marine. Fucking pathetic, right?"

"What's pathetic about it?" Dean asked. OK, this whole thing was getting kind of weird now. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear Sam badmouth Dad any more, even if it wasn't really _Dad_.

Sam snorted. "All of it. You know, Semper fi, do or die, and then wind up burning in some freakin rented dump where all you own's a Chevy Impala and an impressive collection of empty bottles. Defending his country. Something worth dying for." He laughed, with that metallic sound than Dean was coming to know and loathe. _Goddammit, Sam, could you just manage to laugh like you freakin mean it, just once?_

"You don't think it's something worth dying for?" Dad had never really talked about his days in the marine corps, but Dean had always regarded them as kind of an earlier version of their life after the fire: hunt evil, save people, always watch out for your unit. "What would you die for, Sam?"

"Nothing," said Sam flatly.

Dean felt his hackles rise. "Jesus, man, and you think Dad's pathetic?"

"No, you misunderstood," said Sam, sitting up again. "Death doesn't work that way. It's not about dying for a cause. It just happens. One minute you're there, then you're gone. There's nothing freakin glorious or ideological about it. You're just dead. So when I die, _man_, it'll be for nothing."

Dean blinked. "You really believe that?"

"Yeah," said Sam. "I really do."

Dean didn't know exactly what happened, but suddenly he was mad. Real mad. "Goddamn, Sam, you of all people?"

Sam stared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think this is all random? That it's a coincidence? Mom and Dad and Jess?"

Sam's brow creased. "How...?"

But Dean was not about to let petty concerns like the fact that he was totally revealing his hand stop him. "Jesus Christ! The fire that killed Mom started in your room, too, didn't it? And Jess? Three people burn to death in your room, while you're freakin _there_, and you escape every time and you think it's a _coincidence_? God, Sam, I thought you were meant to be smart."

"I don't understand what you're trying to say," Sam said, looking nervous. "What, I attract arsonists?"

Dean leaned forward until he was right in his brother's face. "Open your goddamn eyes, Sam. Something's after you. It _wants _you. It's killing to get to you."

"What? What the hell gives you the right to say shit like that to me?" Sam was yelling now, his jaw thrust out like it always was when he was angry. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about!"

"Yeah I freakin _do_, Sam," Dean yelled back, knowing he was on the verge of making a mistake and not caring.

"_How_? How could you know?"

"Because I'm your goddamn _brother_, that's how!" yelled Dean, and then stopped suddenly.

Silence fell. Sam stared at him with bulging eyes. Dean was finding it kind of difficult to breathe. _Shit. That was really freakin smooth, Dean._

"No," said Sam quietly. "No, you're not. I don't have a brother."

Dean closed his eyes. In for a penny, in for a pound. "Yeah, Sam, you do," he said, opening them again and reaching for the laptop. He pulled up the article about the fire and moved it so that Sam could see the screen. "See?"

Sam sat, looking kind of dazed, and read. He read for so long that Dean thought he must have read the damn thing three times, and probably he had. Then he shook his head.

"No," he said again. "Dad would have told me."

Dean held back a snort. _Yeah, like Dad ever tells us anything._ That was _so_ not the thing to say right now. He needed something better, something that wouldn't send the walls slamming back down. "That's your mom, right?" he said as gently as he could, pointing at his mother's name on the screen. "And that's me," he pointed at the other name. "Dean Winchester."

"You faked the article," Sam said, reaching for the laptop. "You did... something."

Dean watched silently as Sam checked out the source of the webpage, and then double-checked it. After a long moment, his fingers stilled on the keys, and he looked up, looking completely lost. "But... it says you're dead."

Dean let out a laugh, because maybe Sam didn't really believe him but he was beginning to accept the possibility, which was really a damn sight more than Dean could expect, given the circumstances. The _really freakin weird_ circumstances. "Yeah, that came as kind of a surprise to me, too, Sammy."

"I don't... understand."

Dean took a deep breath. "Look, Sam, I don't totally understand what's going on either, but..." _Shit_. How the hell was he going to explain this? It didn't make any freakin sense even to him, and he had the most twisted mind of anyone he knew. Not that he knew that many people, but most of them were pretty goddamn twisted. Slowly, he crossed to the bed opposite Sam's and sat down. "I think..." he started, then stopped. Sam watched him, still looking dazed. "I think something..._changed_ reality. Made it so that I died in the fire that killed Mom. I don't know why it didn't just kill me, but," Dean gestured broadly, "here I am. And it seems like I'm the only one who remembers what it's meant to be like."

Sam just stared. OK, that was fair enough. It wasn't exactly the most believable thing ever. Not even the second most. "Sam," Dean asked. "Say something."

Sam blinked. "I don't understand," he said again.

Dean closed his eyes. _This could take all day._ Well, if it took all day for Dean to get his brother to believe him, then that's how long it would take. And knowing Sam, he would string it out for as long as he could while his geek brain went through every possible implication. Bastard.

"OK, listen," said Dean, deciding on a different tack. "I woke up in a motel room in this stupid town two days ago with nothing. I had the clothes on my back and nothing else. I'm twenty-six years old, and I remember spending the last twenty-two of those years being your older brother."

As he talked, some of Dean's tension ebbed away. He told Sam about their lives, their childhoods, their mother's death and their father's revenge quest. He was sure to make it pretty goddamn clear that the John Winchester he knew was a good man who loved his kids, and OK, maybe he wasn't going to win any father of the year prizes, but hey, those things didn't really exist anyway, right? OK, maybe they did, Dean didn't know how you found these things out, but he was sure the whole thing was rigged anyway, and they probably all went to some white tax attorney in the suburbs who bought his kids Porsches and expensive educations. Anyway. He talked about the demon, and the things that lived in the dark, and then he talked about what had happened to him two days ago and what had happened since. He talked more than he'd probably talked for about, well, ever, and the sun rose in the sky and shone through the window until Dean closed the blinds because it was giving him a headache and because he was nervous and looking for something to occupy his hands. And through it all, Sam just sat there and stared.

Finally, Dean's flow of words shuddered to a stop, and he stared back. Sam didn't move, didn't speak, didn't say a word. And goddamn if that wasn't kind of unnerving.

"Sam?" Dean asked. "You been listening, buddy? Cos that's not the kind of thing I really want to repeat, you know?"

Sam's head jerked forward, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, that hard, unfamiliar look was on his face, and it made Dean feel pretty much like shit because somehow in all the talking and the remembering he'd kind of let himself forget that this Sam was _different_.

"Jesus, you need help," said Sam with a harsh laugh. "A demon killed my mom? You seriously expect me to believe that? She died in a _fire_. A fucking act of _God_. And I don't mean that literally either, I mean as in a totally random, unpredictable event. And you're my brother? I don't _have_ a brother. Even if I did, you showed me the goddamn news article that says he's dead, so you kinda shot yourself in the foot there."

Dean felt his leg start jiggling up and down. "I told you..." he said, but Sam interrupted.

"Yeah, I heard you loud and clear, buddy. You're crazy-"

Dean opened his mouth to retort, but then he noticed that Sam had suddenly stopped his tirade and was looking devastated.

"Oh," he said softly. "Oh."

"Sam?"

Sam shook his head, looking away from Dean now, looking down. His hands were trembling again. "Listen man," he said, not looking up, his eyes hidden by his thick bangs, "I'm gonna need some time, OK? I need to think."

Dean was startled by the sudden change in Sam's demeanor. He'd seemed like he was gearing up for a pretty long rant (and God knew, Sam could sustain a rant for what felt like freakin _hours_) and then he had just stopped. Then again, kid always had been a moody little brat. Plus, it totally made sense. It wasn't exactly your everyday experience, even for a Winchester, to have your long-dead brother who you didn't even know existed show up and fill you in on the side of life that most people thought was just fairy stories. Not to mention tell you everything you remembered was wrong. And to be honest, Dean really wanted to get out of the motel room for a while. So he went to get lunch.

----

When Dean got back, Sam was sitting with his back to the door, nervously fiddling with a button on his shirt.

"You OK?" Dean asked carefully, setting down the bag of food on the table. Sam looked round.

"You need to let me go," he said.

Dean snorted. "Like hell I do."

Sam shook his head. "I'm serious, man. You said your piece. You told me you wanted me to trust you. Now you've got to trust me." He held out his handcuffed wrist to Dean. Dean stared at it, and then glanced at the door.

"You gonna run if I let you go?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Sam. "But do you have anything else to tell me you think could make me stay?"

Dean felt his shoulders slump. Stupid body, never quite as tough as he wanted it to be. "No."

"Well, then," said Sam. "I guess you'll just have to wait and see."

_That's freakin stupid_. Sam was _here_, and he wasn't going anywhere. Dean had driven for hours to find him, had been through hell to make sure he was safe, and now, here he was and he was asking Dean to just let him walk? What the hell kind of thing was that to ask anyway? How could Sam think that he would just let him _go_?

Sam was watching him carefully. "Dean," he said, and it was the first time he had said Dean's name since Dean had told him it the day before, and _God_ he sounded just like the other Sam, the real Sam, and it fucking _hurt_.

Dean turned slowly. Sam was still holding out his wrist. "Were you planning on keeping me chained up forever?"

_That would have involved me having a plan at all_. God_dammit_, Sam was doing that puppy-dog thing, Dean hadn't even known this Sam could _do_ that, and it was just as lethal as ever. The little bastard knew it, too, Dean was sure of it. But then, if after everything he had heard Sam still didn't want to help him, then how could he make Sam stay? Well, apart from the obvious keeping him tied up until Dean managed to fix the whole thing. Which was kind of appealing, actually. He'd have to get a better gag, though, because Sam's hardass thing was kind of annoying.

He couldn't do that.

"Sam," he said, and damn, he sounded like a fucking pussy. He sounded like he was about to cry like a girl. Maybe he was.

"Dean," said Sam again, insistently. And in the end, after everything that had happened, that was all it took. Dean tossed him the keys. Why? Pretty much because he had _no freakin willpower_.

Sam unlocked the handcuffs and stood up, rubbing his wrist. "Uh," he said, clearing his throat. "I'm gonna get some fresh air, OK?"

Dean felt like he couldn't breathe. "Sam," he said, hating the way his voice sounded, like he was being choked or something. Choking was another thing that happened to Sam, not Dean. Never to Dean. Until today.

Sam glanced at him, looked kind of apologetic, and then just walked out the door. Just like that. Like it didn't even freakin _matter_. And Dean was left standing in the motel room, willing himself to go after him, but not able to move a step.

Sam was leaving him. Again.

----

Dean didn't know if he cried. He thought he might have, because his eyes felt kind of swollen and his head was thick. Maybe he just had a cold. Yeah, that was probably it.

He knew he paced though. He paced a lot. He didn't know whether to go looking for Sam, or to stay put in case he came back. _Yeah, kid's probably half-way to freakin Mexico by now_. The tequila was long gone, which was pretty much a pain in the ass because if Dean had ever needed a drink (and he had needed one plenty of times in his short life), he needed one _now_. But he didn't want to leave the room in case Sam came back for his stuff and Dean was gone and he lost his last chance to talk his little brother round. _Or knock him out. That would work too_.

Sam had left the laptop and the car. Dean clung to those two items, so familiar from his own life. He knew that Sam was leaving, that he had lost him again, that he had _freakin let him go_, just like that, but he would be back for those, right? OK, so he had said he hated the car, but Dean knew he loved that goddamn laptop, he practically snuggled up to the damn thing at night, he carried it round in that freakin girly manbag of his and they were practically joined at the hip (except laptops didn't really have hips, so that saying didn't really work in this situation, but whatever). So he would be back for it, right?

But then, Dean didn't really know Sam as well as he thought he did. Not any more.

He didn't know how much time passed. At some point, it started to rain. The food he had brought congealed slowly in the bag, but Dean didn't want it, couldn't eat it, even the smell of it made him sick.

The rain grew heavier. Dean felt like he was growing heavier too, like maybe someone had put a whammy on him to turn his blood into lead or something. Except he guessed maybe lead wouldn't work, because probably it was solid so it wouldn't really flow through his veins. He tried to think of something heavy and liquid. He couldn't think of any liquids except coffee and tequila. He was so fucked.

He had let Sam go.

When a knock sounded at the door, Dean didn't even recognise the noise for a moment. Then he heard it again, barely audible above the pounding rain, and he was across the room in an instant, lead blood or no lead blood, and it was _Sam_, Sam standing in the doorway, soaking wet, his hair plastered to his head and looking _hopeful_ of all things, what the hell, and Dean couldn't think of a single thing to say.

That didn't matter too much, though, because Sam spoke first. "In... your reality," he started, then faltered. "Jess..." he said, and Dean suddenly realised what he had left out of the stories he had told earlier.

"I'm sorry, kiddo," he said softly. "She's gone there too."

"Oh," Sam said. What else was there to say?

Dean cleared his throat. "Come on in, you're letting the weather in."

Sam sat on the motel bed and dripped. Dean stared at him, hardly daring to believe he was there, he was there and he hadn't just picked up his laptop and left. There was no noise except the roar of the rain.

"How do I know it's better?" asked Sam.

"What?"

"Your reality, the one you say you remember. How do I know it's better than this one?"

Dean laughed with relief. "Jesus, it could hardly be worse."

"Anything's possible," said Sam quietly.

Dean thought about it. Here, Sam was a college student, with a future at Stanford Law and the normal life he'd always wanted. Here there were no evil things for him to hunt, no brother to drag him back in, no absent father.

No. Here Sam was helpless, unprotected. The demon was after him, everyone he cared about was dead, and he was... _wrong_. Screw normal, if normal changed Sam from a compassionate, sensitive kid into this guy that Dean had just had the misfortune of hanging out with for two days.

"Sam," he said, "in the real world, you're not alone. You have me, and Dad, and we're together. We're going to find the thing that killed Mom. That's got to be better than this."

Sam sat for a moment and just dripped. Then he said, "I don't know how you expect me to help you."

Dean tried to suppress hopeful feelings. Sam hadn't said he was going to help yet. _But he practically did, right?_ "Usually you do the nerdy geek-boy research thing and I shoot the bad guys and save your ass," he offered.

Sam looked up, brushing his wet hair out of his eyes. "Research? I don't think we're going to find any information on this in the local public library, Dean. We need a specialist collection, and preferably someone who knows what the hell they're doing."

Dean grinned. Sam was going to help. "I know just the guy."

"Fine," Sam said abruptly, standing up. "Do we leave now?"

"What about the people who are looking for you?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. "I made them up. No-one's looking for me."

"OK, well," Dean surveyed the motel room. _God, I freakin hate this freakin motel. And this freakin town. _"Let's get the hell out of Dodge."

"OK. But you're not driving my car any more, got it?"

"I thought you said you hated that car?"

"I do," Sam said. "But you're not driving it."

Dean remembered something Sam had said earlier. _Semper fi, do or die, and then wind up burning in some freakin nothing place where all you own's a Chevy Impala and an impressive collection of empty bottles. _He thought he understood. And to be honest, at this point he would have made any promise at all to Sam if it meant he would stay.

Sam grabbed the laptop and the car keys and headed for the door.

"You know," Dean observed, following closely behind, "in the real world, the car is mine."

"I thought you said your reality was better," Sam noted, and stepped out into the rain.


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own Supernatural and so on.

Many thanks and adoring glances for Taynna, Dollar Short, PadfootObsessed329, sara, SilverKitsune1, carocali, rc, Oldach's Dream, sasha2002, Kaewi, MistyEyes, bally2cute and Annibal for their kind reviews.

Kaewi: I think Sam's relationship with his dad is pretty complicated. Although that's kind of a lame excuse for confusing writing. Sorry ;).

sara: lovely to hear from you! I promise, if I ever get hit with an sQ bunny, you'll be the first to know :D.**  
**

**---- **

**But for the Grace, Chapter 5**

It took two days to drive from Springfield to southern Minnesota, and Sam said about three freakin words the entire way. It wasn't like before, _that_ silence had been pretty much the worst one ever, worse even than the time Dean had accidentally shot a hole through the Impala's rear left door when he was thirteen and Dad hadn't said anything to him for what felt like a week, which really was totally unfair because it wasn't Dean's fault the skincrawler had run in front of the car, and it had been dark, pretty much black really, and the Impala was black too so how was he supposed to see it, and yet Dean still kind of felt guilty about what he'd done to his baby, even though back then she hadn't even been his. Anyway, this silence wasn't like that one, so thick you could cut it with a knife, or hell, even a goddamn _spoon_, but it was still making Dean antsy. He itched to flip on the stereo, but every time he went for it Sam would throw him a look like he'd just kicked a goddamn puppy or something and flip it off again. Eventually, Dean cracked.

"Come on, man, I can't take this. I'm dying of boredom here."

Sam's eyes didn't leave the road. "Driver picks the music."

_Shoulda known that would come back to bite me in the ass._ "But you haven't picked any."

Sam shrugged. "I like it quiet."

Dean subsided grumpily for a moment, then said, "OK, let me drive."

"No," said Sam, and that was it.

Which actually was pretty much a huge pain in the ass, because Sam was really not that hot on the whole driving thing. OK, yeah, he stopped at red lights and indicated turns and all that shit, but there were a couple of times when Dean thought for sure they were going to smash into something before Sam turned the wheel at the last minute. Dean wondered what the hell was up with him. Maybe this Sam had never passed his test or something. He looked pretty tired, but he'd been sleeping a lot more than Dean, so really that shouldn't be a problem. OK, most of it had been drunken sleep, some also involving head injuries, but still. It was like _Driving Miss Daisy_, if it had been Miss Daisy who had been doing the driving. So, really, not like _Driving Miss Daisy_ at all. Yeah, whatever.

When they weren't in the car, Sam was often gone. It kind of pissed Dean off, because he didn't say where he was going, and sometimes he didn't even say he _was_ going, leaving Dean to turn round in a gas station parking lot and find him gone, and at those times Dean would feel his stomach clench again and he would stand by the Impala and wait, holding on to the fact that he had let Sam go and Sam had come back. Sam had come back, but it seemed like Sam wanted to spend as little time with Dean as possible. Well, that was OK, because as long as he kept coming back Dean could still fix this mess, and then he would have the real Sam back again and all he would have to worry about would be melodrama and excessive emo. Jeez, he never thought he would miss that.

Whenever Sam was gone, usually for twenty minutes or so, Dean would keep a close eye on the laptop. He had developed a pure faith in the idea that Sam wouldn't leave for good without the computer, which really was totally irrational, because Sam had so far shown hardly any attachment to it and the stupid manbag hadn't made a single appearance. But love between a man and his laptop didn't require the intercession of a manbag, right? Otherwise, how did people get along before manbags were invented? Unless they were invented before laptops. Maybe the whole question required some further research.

Anyway, Sam always did come back eventually, though he wasn't any more talkative when he did. After a few rebuffed attempts at getting him to at least fucking smile, Dean gave up and waited for Minnesota.

----

The church looked pretty much the same as how Dean remembered it when they pulled up outside, and Dean hoped that that was a good sign. Nothing was certain any more, but so far everything in this reality that didn't relate to his family seemed to be more or less the same. Of course, it wasn't like he was too hot on the details of anyone else's family. Yeah, whatever, thinking too much again. This whole reality stuff was really freakin _hard_.

"You brought us to a church?" Sam asked as he got out of the car. He frowned, then said, "Oh, hey, that whole demon thing..."

"Relax, Sam," Dean grinned. "I keep my fundie outfit for the weekends." He started up the steps. "You coming?"

Inside the church it was quiet and cool, like it always was in those goddamn places (huh, actually maybe this was one of the few occassions where _goddamn_ really didn't work as a handy all-purpose adjective), and Dean settled down in a pew to wait. Sam sat behind him and started leafing through a hymn book.

After about ten minutes, a bearded priest appeared frrom a door at the side of the nave or whatever it was (yeah, names for parts of a church were really something Dean had _no_ intention of bothering to remember), and Dean grinned. His gamble had paid off.

"Pastor Jim," he said, rising to his feet.

Jim turned and smiled, approaching them. "Have we met before?"

"Yeah," said Dean. "Well, uh... no. It's kind of complicated."

He heard Sam snort behind him. Great, the little geek was feeling sarcastic. "Could I have a word with you in private?" he asked Jim smoothly, shooting a death-glare in his brother's direction. Sam raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything.

Jim looked curious, but he didn't protest. "Of course, my son," he said, using what Dean always privately referred to as his priest voice, one which he hadn't used on Dean since – well, since ever. "Do you want to make a confession?"

"Uh... no, I'll take a raincheck," said Dean, hearing Sam snort again. He could be such a little shit sometimes.

Jim didn't ask anything else, but led Dean to the sacristy (or whatever... OK, so Dean kind of _did_ know church names, but only because he'd spent far too much time hanging out in them when he was a kid, not because he'd _learned_ them or anything). It looked the same as Dean remembered. He and Sam had used to play hide and go seek in there when they were real little, and Sam had never understood how Dean managed to find him so quickly every time, which was really kind of slow of him, because come on, he hid in the cupboard with the cassocks _every freakin time_, and at that point an eight-year-old Dean had kind of wondered if maybe Sam was going to grow up to be a village idiot or something, but when he'd said so to Dad he had just grinned and said that there was a big difference between eight and four and he had to make allowances for his little brother, and Dean had always remembered that.

Except none of it had happened. Not here.

"What's troubling you, my son?" Jim asked (_again with the freakin priest voice, Jeez_), and Dean sighed.

"Jim, God, just tell me you're a freakin demon-hunter in this reality," he said, too tired to play games any more.

Jim stood very still for a moment, and Dean thought maybe he was wrong and that pretty much made him feel like shit because he wasn't sure where else to go and he wasn't sure how many more _you're a freakin nutjob_ looks he could take. Then Jim said, "I'm a little old to hunt any more. Is something after you?"

Dean let out a sigh of relief. "Thank Christ. You've still got all those books, right?"

"Son," Jim said, sitting down at a narrow table and looking troubled, "I think you need to explain to me exactly how you know so much about me."

Yeah, that was kind of fair enough. At least this time he would have a headstart in the credibility stakes. Jim already knew what was out there.

All the same, it wasn't easy.

"Reality has changed," said Jim some time later, for what must have been the fifteenth freakin time.

"Yeah," said Dean, trying not to sound too impatient. "It's not like it's meant to be."

"And you know this because you're dead," Jim continued.

"Do I look freakin dead?" Dean snapped.

"Do you feel dead?" Jim asked.

_OK, enough with the priest shit already._ Dean closed his eyes and counted to ten. Well, OK, three, but he'd never exactly been the most patient person. "Listen, Jim, I'm not a ghost. I _know_ you. Up until five days ago, you knew me too. You first met me when I was six and my little brother out there was two. Jeez, you stitched me up once in this freakin _room_."

Jim watched him for a moment, and Dean waited impatiently for him to get over the whole disbelief kick and start freakin helping. Sam, OK, Sam didn't know about the supernatural side of life, plus he was kind of fucked up, so Dean could be patient with him (well, kinda), but this was different. Dean needed help. And he wasn't just talking about a decent library.

"I've never heard of anything like this happening before," said Jim finally. "Do you have any sort of evidence to go on?"

_Yeah, a couple of keys and twenty-two years of memory._ "Think about it, Jim, if something like this had happened before, you _wouldn't_ have heard about it, would you? No-one would remember."

"Then why do you?" asked Jim.

Yeah, OK, good point. God, why couldn't people just damn well believe him once in a while? Oh yeah, maybe it was because he sounded like a _freakin crazy person_. "I don't know. Maybe I'm supposed to put it back, maybe it's just a mistake." Dean ran his hand through his hair. "Damnit, Jim, it's all wrong. My dad's freakin _dead_. My brother doesn't remember me – no-one remembers me. You gotta admit, that's pretty weird."

Jim was studying him again. Dean felt uncomfortable and dropped his eyes, fidgetting with a coin on the table. Finally, the older man sighed. "Sounds like you've got yourself in quite a fix. I'll help you as much as I can."

Dean let out a breath he hadn't even known he was holding. "Thanks, Jim."

Jim stood up. "We'd better see what your brother's been up to."

Sam was still sitting in the pew, his head bowed, and for a moment Dean thought he was praying. Turned out what he was doing was reading, though. Reading the freakin Bible. Serious ubergeek. Jim made his way over to him. "Hello," he said. "My name's Jim." Priest voice still intact.

Sam looked up and shook the hand that was offered to him. "I'm Sam," he said.

"So I hear," said Jim. He jerked his head in Dean's direction. "You know that guy?"

Sam glanced over. "Not really," he said. "He says he's my brother."

"You believe him?" asked Jim, and Dean felt the muscles along his spine tense.

Sam looked over again, more thoughtfully this time. Dean tried to arrange his features into a trustworthy expression, but he had the sneaking suspicion that he just looked constipated.

"I don't know," said Sam finally. "Do you?"

Jim looked over too, and studied Dean. Dean was actually getting pretty freakin sick of being freakin studied. OK, yeah, he was a handsome son of a bitch, but there really was no call for this level of observation. It was all he could do not to make some comment about labrats or oil paintings or whatever, which would have been a mistake because a. he didn't think it would help earn him anyone's trust and b. he couldn't come up with anything particularly funny when he was being stared at. He wished he had Sam's face (Jesus Christ he hoped he never wished that again) – they would have been eating out of his hand in freakin _seconds_.

"Why would anyone lie about something like that?" Jim observed.

_Well, exactly. If I was going to pick someone to be my brother, it'd be like Johnny Depp or someone freakin cool, not freakin _Sam

"I don't know," Sam shrugged. "Maybe he's a psycho. He keeps talking about demons and shit."

"Well that, at least, is true," Jim said, and Sam looked up at him in surprise. Jim held his gaze for a long moment, and then said, "Sam, I''d like to have a private talk with you if I may."

"Whatever," Sam shrugged.

Jim looked at Dean. "I'll show you the books."

----

Jim's house adjoined the church, and it, too, was pretty much exactly as Dean remembered it: small and neat and spartan, apart from the books which lined every wall and were piled high on every surface. Dean remembered the first time they had been there, when Sam was still just a baby, only two years old, and how wide his little brother's eyes had gotten when he'd seen the books. Kid wasn't even old enough to know what the damn things were for, but he was already a geek. Dean, meanhwhile, had seen the books mainly as a cool landscape to help him create the stories that had occupied his mind in those days, when he had hunted dinosaurs and fought space aliens in like silver spandex or whatever. They had been good for hiding behind and climbing on and piling up to make fortresses, not for what was inside them. God, Dean would have made an awesome dinosaur hunter.

And now here he was again, except this time he actually had to read the damn things, and that pretty much sucked. It wasn't that Dean didn't like to read – well, OK, actually yeah it kind of was, but whatever, that wasn't the point really. The point was that anyone could see that fighting demons (who pretty much never seemed to wear silver spandex by the way, and what the hell was up with _that_?) was just so much more fun than reading about them. Well, anyone except Sam, and let's face it, Sam was pretty much a freak. Fun or not, though, he needed to find out what was going on, and, more importantly, to fix it.

He picked up the first book off the top of a teetering pile, wondering briefly if Jim had any kind of filing system, and started to flick through it. It was pretty much your average demon lore book – spidery writing and twisted symbols and a serious case of melodrama. Demon research always somehow seemed less dorky on the internet. Well, OK, still dorky, but _less_.

Half an hour and several volumes later, Dean looked around in disgust. He was never even going to make a dent in this goddamn huge freakin pile of dead tree. He had had to toss three books already because they were in languages he didn't understand, and one because, although it was in English, it might as well have been in Klingon for all the sense Dean could make of it. The others he'd flicked through didn't look like they had anything useful to say, though really, how the hell he was supposed to work out even what he was looking for was pretty much beyond him.

It was time to get some help.

Dean headed for the kitchen, pretty much fed up of waiting for Jim and Sam to finish their little gossip session anyway. What the hell were they talking about in there? Probably trading tips about the best places to sit in the library to pick up hot chicks (OK, maybe not). Or maybe Sam was filling Jim in on how Dean was really crazy and dangerous.

The kitchen door was slightly ajar, and Dean heard the hum of voices as he approached. He was about to breeze through and demand to know what the hell kind of system piling books all over the goddamn floor was in the first place and who the hell reads Latin any more _anyway_, when he heard Jim say something that made him stop dead.

"Sam," the priest's voice carried clearly, and it was pretty obvious from the tone (_freakin priest voice_) that this was just the latest in a long line of questions, "did your father ever hit you?"

_Jesus Christ._ Dean stared at the door. He should have known better than to come to Jim. OK, yeah, the guy had the best occult library this side of the freakin Vatican, but he was _paid_ to stick his nose into other people's business, and he didn't know Dean, didn't know _Dad_, and what the _hell_ kind of question was that to ask anyway? Well, at least Sam would set him straight.

Except Sam didn't. What Sam actually did was say, "What the hell kind of question is that?"

And although Dean had just thought exactly the same thing himself, he felt a shiver run through his insides, and he stepped back from the door. _Fuck. Fuck._ Sam hadn't denied it. OK, he hadn't outright said _yeah, actually, my dad used to beat the shit out of me all the time, wanna see my scars?_, but he might as well have done, because that was what Jim was going to hear. Dean felt a rising tide of anger flood through his belly. _God_, he was so freakin sick of this moody, silent Sam with his stupid sob-stories and his mistrustful glances and his refusing to let Dean drive his own goddamn car and all his freakin _drama_. Why the hell was this happening? Well, whatever the reason, Dean was going to fix it. Now.

----

Sam came into the library about ten minutes later, slipping through the door quietly and staring at the books. Dean pretended to be absorbed in what he was reading, and didn't look up.

"Wow," said Sam after a moment. "Lot of books, huh?"

Dean made a non-comittal noise.

Sam walked over to the shelf and scanned the spines. "You got a system?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "Pick a book and start reading."

Sam glanced at him, then chose a book from the shelf and started to flick through it. "Huh," he muttered. "Latin."

Dean looked up. "You don't speak Latin?"

Sam shrugged, putting the book back carefully. "No."

"Well, that's just great," Dean muttered, and slammed down the book he was holding, raising a cloud of dust.

"Sorry," said Sam, and chose another book.

Dean managed to contain himself for about a minute (well, OK, it was probably more like forty-five seconds, but that's like nearly a minute, right?) before he had to ask. "What did you talk about?"

Sam shrugged again. "Me. He asked a bunch of questions, pretty much the same ones you asked the other day. Everyone's suddenly pretty interested in my life story."

"What'd you tell him?" Dean asked, and his attempt at an indifferent tone obviously kind of failed, because Sam looked round in surprise.

"Same as I told you, man," he said. "Ask the same questions, get the same answers. That's generally how these things work."

"No, Sam," Dean growled, standing up and crossing to stand in front of his brother. "What did you _tell_ him?"

Sam stared at him. "Am I not speaking English here?"

_Freakin smart mouth. Goddamn._ "You told him Dad used to hit you. _Jesus_, Sam, what the hell were you thinking?" Dean was yelling now, but he didn't care.

"What?" said Sam frowning and taking a step back. "I didn't freakin say that."

"Yeah, you did. Why would you say something like that?" Dean demanded, grabbing his brother's lapels. It was kind of like that night back in the parking lot in Palo Alto, except Sam didn't stink of bar and tequila and if Dean had thought he was mad then, he was freakin _furious_ now. "Why?" he yelled again, and Sam's eyes skated off his to the wall.

"You gonna hit me?" he asked.

"Jesus, just forget it," Dean said, letting go of Sam and turning away.

Sam wasn't finished though. "Come on, Dean. I know you want to. You've wanted to ever since I freakin met you. I look like him, but I'm not him, right? So why don't you just take your shot?"

"Shut up," growled Dean, feeling a growing headache and the need for a beer and a quiet place to think.

"You know what? No. You don't get to tell me what to do. You're not my brother, and I'm pretty sure you're not John Winchester's son either, because if you were you would have freakin decked me by now."

There it was again. That _implication_, that dirty little freakin _insinuation_, and suddenly Dean couldn't control himself any more because he just wanted Sammy back, he just wanted his brother and not this bitter, moody, _lying _little _shit_, and so he swung hard, too hard, and Sam went down, caught by surprise, and he didn't get up again.

Shit.

Dean hadn't hit him _that_ hard, right? Sam was the younger one, the kid, sure, but he'd long since outgrown the stage of being unable to stand up to Dean in a fight. Yeah, OK, Dean usually won, but that was because he was really freakin _cool_, not because Sam was liable to break at a touch.

Except there was Sam, lying on the floor (pretty much taking up the entirety of the floorspace that wasn't covered by books) and making this groaning noise and clutching his head and scrunching up his face the way he always did when he had a oh Christ a vision, and _then_ Dean worked out what was going on and went from scared and guilty to scared and guilty and freaked the hell out and helpless, which was always a fun combination.

Sam had flicked into the glassy staring section of the vision by the time Dean made it to his side, and that was always kind of the part that freaked Dean out the most, even though it ought to have been a relief that his brother was no longer calling out in pain. He didn't really understand what the visions were like, what they felt like, whether Sam understood what was happening during them or only after. Sam had never told him. He had never asked. Yeah, he was pretty much a shitty big brother.

And then it was over, and Sam was blinking and cursing and rubbing his head again and said something that sounded like _I'm not going back_, but it was so quiet that Dean didn't think he could have heard right, and then he said _what the fuck was that_ and Dean understood that this Sam had never had a vision before, and that was kind of a drag or whatever because sure, the visions were pretty spectacularly crappy whenever they happened, but Dean remembered the sheer panic the first time and he _so_ didn't want to go through that again.

"You never had that happen to you before?" he asked cautiously, reaching out to help Sam up.

Sam batted his hand away. "Jesus. Have what happen?"

"A vision," Dean said, and when Sam turned disbelieving eyes on him, he said, "You know, psychic crap. Seeing the future. You're psychic."

OK, so that wasn't exactly the most sensitive way to do that. But on the other hand, Sam was freakin _laughing_, or kind of laughing, in a my-head-is-about-to-split-open kind of way that Dean recognised from too many hungover Saturday mornings watching cartoons in grimy motel rooms. "Dude," said Dean. "What?"

"Psychic? You think I'm psychic?" Sam was choking now, kind of hysterical, and Dean wondered about maybe slapping him except he was pretty sure that wouldn't help with the headache, and plus, he had just punched him in the face and look where that had gotten them.

"Well, yeah," Dean said. "You just had a vision, didn't you?"

"No," said Sam, and his laughter stopped as suddenly as it had started. He wasn't looking at Dean any more, looking inwards instead, at something Dean couldn't see, and damn, Dean hated it when he did that.

"Oh right," said Dean, "so you just decided to lie around on the floor whining for five minutes, that right?"

"You're the one who hit me," muttered Sam.

"Yeah, and you're the one who told me to do it. You seriously expect me to believe that all that was just from getting punched? Give it up, Sam, I've seen you fight. You saw something."

Sam pulled himself into a sitting position. He looked kind of pissed. Well, whatever, seemed like that was pretty much a given with this Sam anyway.

"You know, sometimes I think you really _are_ the crazy one," he muttered, and Dean shrugged.

"Sometimes I think so too. What did you see?"

"Nothing," said Sam, and when Dean opened his mouth to protest, he raised a hand and said, "you're serious about this? The visions? I mean, in your reality I see... the future?"

"Damn straight," said Dean. "You never even had a, like, a nightmare or something?"

Sam snorted. "Everyone has nightmares."

"Not like yours," said Dean, and wondered how fucked up this whole thing had become that _he_ was having to convince _Sam_ that his nightmares weren't just random.

Sam sighed and closed his eyes. "I'm having the worst week," he muttered. Dean waited, but Sam didn't say anything else, heading into his brooding emo phase, and Dean was about to ask again when Sam said, "It wasn't a vision."

"Sam, would you just stop..."

"No," said Sam. "I did see something, but it wasn't the future. It was the past. A memory."

Dean stared. OK, that was new. "You sure?"

Sam nodded, then winced slightly.

OK, weird. What the hell use was a psychic power that showed you the past? "What was it a memory of?"

Sam looked very tired. "I'd really rather not talk about it."

Dean thought about this. It could be important, and in fact, if it wasn't important then that was a goddamn crock of shit, because really, painful visions that saved lives were one thing, but painful visions of the time you accidentally called your teacher "dad" or whatever were just, well, kind of unfair. On the other hand, if it really was just the past, and not even someone else's past but _Sam's_, then how could it be important? Sam already knew about it. Plus, Sam had pretty much talked a lot today and some of the things he had talked about had not been pretty. Dean frowned, remembering exactly why he had hit Sam in the first place.

He had taken too long to think about it, though, and now it was too late to demand Sam tell him what he saw, because Sam had already got up and was heading out the door, mumbling something about needing some air. If it had been _Sam_, the real Sam, Dean might have gone after him, but this guy, who was kind of Sam but kind of not... Dean wasn't sure any more, so he watched him go and then turned back to the piles of books.

OK, research. Great.

----

Books were kind of lame.

Seriously, the geeks of the world treated these things like they were made of freakin gold or whatever, and God, they were dusty and boring and they kind of smelt, and why the hell were there so _many_ of them? Really, people didn't need to know all this shit. Plus, no search function, what the hell was up with that?

But the worst thing about books, Dean decided as he tossed another volume aside none too gently, was that none of these ones had what he wanted in it. Not one book so far had mentioned reshaping reality to your own specifications, they were all about the ghosts and demons and prophecies and shit, which hey, he guessed sometimes that was pretty useful, but those times were not _now_.

Jesus, he had a headache.

He wondered how long Sam had been gone. His initial worry about the vision had faded, and he was starting to get just a little pissed at how Sam had just left him here to do all the work. Especially given Sam was just so much _better_ at this stuff, Latin or no Latin. Jim had gone out somewhere too, and the house was pretty quiet, which set Dean's teeth on edge. He wondered if Jim had a tape deck. Wondered if he would mind if Dean blasted AC/DC. _His_ Jim hated Dean's music and had banned it from the house when Dean was fifteen, but hey, Sam was pretty much a different person here, so who's to say Jim wasn't a closet classic rock fan? At any rate, it would be a good excuse.

Plus, he thought the aspirin were still in the car.

Straightening his aching shoulders (why the hell did sitting around staring at crappy books make him feel more exhausted than hunting down three werewolves?), he got up and headed for the door. Sam hadn't taken the car when he'd gone off, which Dean was grateful for. Of course, Sam didn't know about Dean's extra set of keys. He had figured that would come in handy some time, and that time was now.

He dropped into the driver's seat of the Impala and smiled for a moment, enjoying being back where he belonged. Letting Sam drive the car all the time was a total pain in the ass. Plus, Sam thought it was _him_ not letting _Dean_ drive, and that was pretty hard to take. "I missed you, baby," Dean muttered softly, running his hands over the steering wheel. Talking to a car. Maybe he _was _the crazy one.

He thought about taking it out for a spin, imagined himself cruising down the highway with the window open and his music playing. Except for some reason instead of the really hot chick who ought to have been in the seat next to him, given that it was his goddamn fantasy after all and he could imagine whatever he liked, it was Sam, Sam laughing at him singing off-key, Sam groaning at his bad jokes and complaining about his taste in music. Goddamn, Sam was such a massive pain in the ass. He couldn't even leave Dean's fantasies alone.

Dean sighed, grabbed a couple of tapes from his collection, and reached for the glove compartment. The bottle of aspirin fell out as he opened it, and rolled out of sight under the passenger's seat. _Great_. He leaned down and groped around for it, and his fingers closed on a piece of card. Curious, he tugged at it. It was stuck to the floor, but after a moment he pulled it loose and found himself staring at his own four-year-old face, creased and stained with time and some unidentifiable substance that actually Dean didn't really want to even try and identify, but recognisably him. In fact, the whole photograph was familiar: the four of them, Dad, Mom, baby Sammy and him, grinning in front of their house in Lawrence, two months before the fire.

Dean turned the picture over carefully, and saw the list of names written in Dad's sloping hand. The thing must have been down there under the seat forever. He guessed Sam had never found it. Jesus. And also, gross. What _was_ that sticky stuff?

Dean wondered what to do with the picture. Technically, it was Sam's, and not only that but it would help tip the scales, help prove to Sam without a shadow of a doubt that what Dean was telling him was the truth. But he didn't want to give it to Sam. Not to this Sam, who hated the car and implied stuff that Dean still wasn't actually going to think about because it made his headache worse. Sam would probably just throw it straight in the trash. Sam wasn't even _trying_ to be part of the Winchester family. No, Dean would keep the photo, for now anyway. Whatever the hell the sticky stuff turned out to be.

OK, decision made. Aspirin. Dean groped further, under the driver's seat this time, assuming the damn thing had rolled away. His fingers brushed something cold, and he grinned and grasped it.

It wasn't the bottle of aspirin, though. It was something else.

Dean pulled the object out and stared at it for a moment. Vodka. A bottle of vodka. Or, to be more accurate, a bottle which had once contained vodka. What the hell was that doing under the seat of the Impala?

Dean thought about it, hard. Vodka. Vodka in the Impala. Vodka in the Impala because... Sam had had a car party and invited all his friends? Or because Sam was taking the bottle to be recycled? Or... hey, Dean remembered Sam saying that his dad had liked to drink vodka. The photo had clearly been stuck down there for at least seven or eight years, so why not the empty bottle too? OK, so bottles were kind of bigger than photos and less liable to get stuck to the floor, but still, it could happen, right? _A Chevy Impala and an impressive collection of empty bottles_. Well, he guessed that was what Dad had left Sam, then. That was OK. Dad's vodka, not Sam's.

Unbidden, another voice – no, the same _voice_, but not the same _person_ – entered his head. _A little more tequila, a little less demon hunting._

_Jesus, Sam, get out of my head._

Both of them were a pain in the ass. It was just totally typical that Sam would get himself into this kind of trouble, and now Dean had to fix it as usual. Yeah, OK, it seemed like _technically_ it was Dean who had gotten into trouble this time, but Sam wasn't exactly doing his darndest to help, so Dean was going to have to fix it anyway. And he supposed maybe you _could _see it as Sam getting into trouble, because Sam was the one who was stuck being wrong and screwed up, even though it was Dean who was stuck having to deal with it.

OK, you know what? He really had to stop trying to think out the mechanics of this whole situation in his head. It pretty much never went well.

Dean reached under the seat one final time, managed to find the aspirin (_finally_), popped a couple, and got out of the car, taking the photo and the bottle with him. Much as he loved sitting in the Impala, he still had a lot of work to do.

----

Sam came back about an hour later. Dean heard rather than saw him, the towers of books were kind of blocking his view. In fact, it was kind of like the time he'd made a castle and fought off hordes of barbarian invaders. Pity those damn barbarians couldn't show up now. He could do with the distraction.

"Sam," he called. "Get your ass in here and help me out, would ya?"

Sam entered the room and stumbled slightly over a couple of books that lay where Dean had left them. "Jesus," he said. "This place looks like a bomb hit it."

"Yeah, well," Dean muttered, "I kind of wish it would."

Sam hunkered down next to him and scanned the spines. "Find anything yet?"

"Oh yeah," Dean sighed in frustration. "A whole big pile of nothing." Then he paused. Sam had that smell again. That bar smell. Shit. Say something, Dean. "Uh... good walk?" Yeah, real smooth.

Sam shrugged. "OK," he said, and Dean caught the whiff of tequila on his breath.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Why the hell had he thought an empty bottle could manage to spend seven years under a seat without being spotted anyway?

"Uh, Sam," he said carefully, because man if he was wrong (and he was wrong, right?) and he didn't take enough care he was going to be in deep shit.

"Yeah?" Sam asked, not looking up from the books. God, even when he was wasted he was a giant geek.

Dean didn't really know what to say. I mean, what _do_ you say in this situation? OK, so no-one had ever been in quite this situation before, but still. _Are you an alcoholic_ just didn't seem like it was going to cut it, so Dean just reached over and grabbed the empty vodka bottle from where he had left it by the wall and tilted it towards Sam.

Sam looked at it, then at Dean. "Been having a party?" he said. "Hope you brought enough for everyone."

"I found it in the car," Dean said. Sounded like a simple statement. Yeah, whatever.

"OK," Sam said slowly, looking at Dean like he'd grown an extra head or something. "Your point being?"

"Have you been drinking?" Dean asked abruptly. He was kind of sick of playing games.

Sam rolled his eyes. "What's it to you?"

There it was again. That omission. That _implication_. God, why couldn't he just say things straight out?

"A lot. It's two in the afternoon."

"Yeah, Dean," Sam said. "I learned how to tell the time when I was four."

"Sam," Dean said, and he made sure to say it slowly because damn he was sick of Sam deliberately missing the point. "Do we have a problem here?"

"Wait," Sam was grinning, but he didn't look happy. "You mean do _I_ have a problem, right? Is that what you're asking me, Dean? Do I have a problem?"

"Yeah," Dean said, without wavering. "That's what I'm asking you."

"Jesus, I don't believe this," Sam muttered. "You know, you don't have a right to know everything about my life, just because in some crazy alternate reality that you probably just made up I'm your brother, OK? Maybe I do have a problem, maybe I don't, but it's _my_ problem, not yours."

"No way, Sam." Dean was good and pissed now, which really didn't take long because he'd been simmering on the edge all day. "If your problem interferes with me getting you back the way you're supposed to be, then it's my problem too. And it's got to stop."

"The way I'm supposed to be?" Sam sounded incredulous. "Wait, you mean your sweet little bro who does everything you ask and hero worships you and probably can't hold more than one beer because he would never drink because he's such a perfect little _angel_? What, you can't stand it that I have a mind of my own?"

"Shut up," Dean growled. "Don't you talk about him. You don't know anything about him."

Sam made a noise that was probably meant to be a laugh, but seriously, Sam needed to brush up on his noise-making skills because some of the things he was coming out with these days were seriously weird. "I _am_ him," he said, spreading his arms wide. "Sam Winchester, right? That's me. _I'm_ Sam."

"Yeah, well, you know what? You're right. The real Sam doesn't drink much, because he's not a fucking moron." Dean's fists were clenched at his sides, but he'd already taken one swing today and he wasn't planning on taking another.

"_Jesus_, Dean," Sam yelled, "_this_ is real! I'm real! Can't you freakin see me?"

Dean shook his head. They were getting off topic, plus the whole conversation was really freakin confusing. "You've got to stop drinking," he said, determined to get this back to something he could have some control over, something he could fix, because Sam's freaky mind-bending double identity was pretty much the last thing he wanted to deal with.

"What for?" Sam asked.

Jesus, Sam was dumb. How the hell had he gotten into Stanford? "What _for_? Alcoholism's freakin dangerous, that's what the hell for! You could freakin _die_!"

Sam's mouth went tight. "I know what it's like. I pretty much had a front-row seat to that show."

"Yeah, well you're the one who's always going on about how much of a loser Dad was. Now you want to be just like him? What the hell is that?"

Sam shut up for a moment, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Then he looked Dean straight in the eye and said, "You know what, Dean? Everybody dies. At least this way, I've got a good idea of what'll do it for me. Unless I burn first."

Dean felt the bottle fall out of his hand. _Goddammit_. This was freakin serious, and it was freakin ridiculous. Of all the ghouls and monsters and _things_ that had threatened Sam's life over the years, all the times one or both of his little family had got hurt trying to keep him safe, and Sam had taken a fancy to killing himself with a freakin _bottle_? Oh, no way. No freakin way. "Yeah, well, you know what, you're just going to have to live with being surprised like the rest of us poor schmucks," Dean said. What Sam wanted didn't matter any more. Sam had pretty much proved himself to be incapable of making his own decisions. From now on, Dean was in charge.

And Dean was not going to let a drop of alcohol pass his little brother's lips ever again


	6. Chapter 6

**I don't own Supernatural.**

Hugs and kisses to The Cat's Whiskers, Mellaithwen, PadfootObsessed329, Oldach's Dream, sugarquill4ron, lady scribe of avandell, Dollar Short, marie, carocali, sasha2002, Onari and Misty Eyes for being so kind with their reviews. Seriously, you guys are amazing. I'm sorry the update was a little longer this time, the inspiration just wasn't flowing and this chapter gave me a lot of trouble, so I hope it turned out OK.

Onari: Dean is definitely not perfect in this story, nor is he meant to be. I think you picked up on what I wanted to put across ;).

**---- **

**But for the Grace, Chapter Six**

Dean slammed shut the book he was reading, and sighed. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Zip. Nada. Precisely fucking zero, as the French would say, or at least they would if Dean Winchester got to teach em English. _God_, this was freakin annoying.

Plus, some of these books sounded like they were written by ninety year olds or something. I mean, _perchance_? Who the fuck _says_ that? What the fuck does it even mean?

"It means _by chance _or _perhaps_," Sam said. "It's not that hard to figure out."

Dean growled. He hadn't realised he was talking out loud. Going nuts now, too.

On the other hand, it was the first thing Sam had said to him since their little disagreement about his liquid lunch, and Sam didn't sound pissed. Kind of sharp and maybe a bit bitter, but not pissed. That was good, right?

Dean glanced over and saw to his annoyance that Sam's pile of discarded books was taller (_and neater_) than his own, despite the fact that _Dean_ had been there all freakin day and Sam only for a few hours. Plus, Sam ought to be at least a couple of sheets to the wind, given how strong his breath had smelt. He probably wasn't even reading the damn things.

"Find anything interesting?" Dean asked.

"Lots of stuff," Sam said absently. "Nothing relevant though."

Trust Sam to make a distinction between _interesting_ and _relevant_. Geek. "You uh, you being careful?" Dean asked, then winced at how much he sounded like Dad when Dad had decided it was time to give Dean The Talk (which had come a couple freakin years too late anyway).

Sam clearly thought so too. "About what?"

"You know, checking carefully," Dean said, gesturing at the books. "Don't want to miss anything important."

Sam looked mystified. "Why wouldn't I be?"

_Because you're freakin wasted_, Dean thought, but he didn't say it.

Didn't need to either. Sam's brows drew down. "You think I can't handle this?" he asked. "Jesus, Dean."

Dean shrugged. Sam's scowl grew fiercer, and he pointed to the top book in the pile. "This is a book of lore about the Icelandic walking dead. They haunt farms, guard treasure in mounds, sometimes they appear in the form of animals. You can kill them by burning them and scattering their ashes on the sea, or by taking the dead body out of the house through a hole in the wall. Nothing about changing reality." He pointed to the next one. "This is full of information about werewolves, though honestly, the way the primary sources are referenced I wouldn't trust it to tell me how to cross the road. Nothing about reality, though." He pointed to the third one down. "This book has rituals for binding supernatural creatures..."

"OK, OK," Dean said, holding up his hands. _Whaddya know, they do have standards in Stanford after all._ "I believe you, God."

"Well, good." Sam stretched out his shoulders with a sigh, and then clambered to his feet and turned to head for the kitchen. When he got there, however, Dean was already blocking the door.

"What?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Where are you going?"

"Uh..." Sam looked at him like he'd asked him what colour the sky was or something. "To get a drink?"

Dean snorted. "The hell you are."

Sam stared at him for a moment, then rolled his eyes. "Not _that_ kind of drink. I want some tea."

"Fine," said Dean, still blocking the door. "I'll make it for you."

It was Sam's turn to snort. "_You're_ going to make me _tea_?"

Dean shrugged. "Dude, I can boil water. How hard can it be?"

He thought maybe Sam would look pissed off at having his life directed by Dean, but right now he just looked kind of amused. Seriously, what? The idea of Dean making tea wasn't that funny, right? He'd made coffee often enough, and let's face it, they were basically the same thing except tea was a girl's drink.

A few minutes later, surveying Jim's cupboards, Dean had to conclude that maybe he had underestimated tea. Jim had like fifteen different kinds, and they were all loose-leaf, and Dean suspected that if he just put them in the coffee maker then what came out wouldn't exactly pass muster. God, Sam always had to be complicated. Why couldn't he just want coffee like a normal human being?

"You OK in there?" Sam's voice came through from the other room, low and still amused. "You need some help?"

"For Christ's sake," Dean muttered, and reached for the first box that came to hand. Some fruity-smelling shit. It would have to do. If Sam was gonna drink a girly drink, he could damn well have one that smelt like freakin shampoo.

Sam looked at him over the top of his book and raised his eyebrows when he reentered the room, thrusting the steaming mug in Sam's direction, but he didn't say anything except _thank you_. Dean grunted. This whole stopping-Sam-drinking thing was freakin harder than he'd thought it would be.

And he knew, of course, that the fight hadn't even started yet.

----

Jim came back from doing whatever it is priests do when they're not hunting demons (seriously, what was it that priests did all day? Pray? Hang out with nuns? Try to avoid thinking sinful thoughts? Totally the easiest job ever, apart from the last part, and really, no-one knew what you were thinking anyway, except maybe God, and he was pretty merciful right? Anyway, apart from the whole being up early on Sundays part Dean was pretty sure he would have made an excellent priest) at about five. He stood in the doorway quietly for a minute watching them, as if he didn't know that Dean had heard him before he'd even got out of his car. OK, he probably actually _didn't_ know that. And that was kind of hard to deal with, because not-Sam was definitely not Sam, whereas not-Jim was actually pretty much still Jim, apart from the whole using the priest voice on Dean thing. And the closet love of classic rock. Dean was still holding out for that one.

"You boys getting on OK?" Jim said finally, and Sam looked up in surprise, because clearly _he_ hadn't heard Jim at all, engrossed in reading.

"Yeah, fantastic," Dean said. "I love research."

Jim gave him a look, like he wasn't sure whether Dean was serious or not, and Dean rolled his eyes. Mental note: lay on the sarcasm bit thicker with people who don't know you. Even when they _should_. A moment later, Jim's expression changed, though.

"Sam, what happened to your face?"

Shit. A reddish mark on Sam's cheekbone where Dean had clocked him was just beginning to develop into a bruise. It almost wasn't noticeable among all the faded bruises from the bar-fight (bar-_fights_), but Jim was a freakin _priest_ and a demon-hunter, and he had sharp eyes.

Sam touched his fingers to his face and gave a grin that was half embarrassment, half self-deprecation. "I had an altercation with an angry lamp-post."

Dean stared. Jim did too, and Sam shook his head and chuckled. Freakin _chuckled_. "I know, right? I just went out for some air and walked smack into the damn thing. Thank God no-one was watching."

Jim stared a bit more, then gave a sort of half-shrug and turned to the books. Dean didn't blame him – Christ, he knew what had really happened, he'd _given_ Sam the damn bruise, and he almost believed Sam's story too, which made him wonder suddenly how much practice Sam had had at telling that sort of lie – but he wanted to shake him, to yell at him not to just turn away and abandon Sam, God, it was his freakin _job_. But of course, then he would have had to explain who was playing the goddamn lamp-post in this story, and _that_ was definitely not the best way to win friends and influence people. _This guy's my brother, even though he doesn't remember me, and I'd do anything to protect him. Oh, and by the way, I just punched him in the face just like our dad used to do._ Shit. Was he really _believing_ that shit about Dad now? Jesus.

Stop thinking.

Jim sat with them a while, flicked through a few books, and then announced that he was going to make dinner, and that they could stay for the night if they wanted. Dean hadn't even thought about it – he had assumed from the moment Jim appeared in the church that morning that they would be staying in the room they had slept in since they were kids, the one with that fucked-up chintz wallpaper shit and the beds that had gotten too short for Dean when he was fifteen and too short for Sam two years later because he had been freakishly tall even then (and these days Sam's legs actually hung off the end all the way to the ground, but Jim said it was good for them to be reminded of where they came from, except Dean thought privately that actually it was probably just good for Jim to not have to shell out for new beds). He hadn't even thought to imagine that maybe Jim wouldn't want a couple of strangers who were acting pretty much like lunatics (OK, _Dean_ was acting like a lunatic, Sam was just acting like an asshole) staying in his house.

Lucky Jim was a priest, really. They pretty much _had_ to take in waifs and strays. And Dean had never felt more like a stray (not a freakin waif, man, that was _so_ not his gig) than he had over the last six days.

Sam turned a page and sipped his tea. Dean tried to concentrate on the book in his hand, but now that Jim had mentioned food he realised he was freakin _starving_, and also totally and utterly sick of reading freakin spellbooks and crazy shit that made his life look almost normal. Jim's collection was amazing, yeah, but it also included a lot of crap. God, that weirdo freak who'd invented Wicca had a hell of a lot to answer for. Plus, it didn't help that there was some thought wandering around in the back of his brain and refusing to come to the surface, the little bastard. It probably wasn't even anything important, just some musing on that hot clerk at the motel last night or some shit about needing to change the oil in the Impala or something (OK, well, that _was_ important), but the fact that Dean couldn't quite grasp hold of it was driving him insane.

Sam sipped his tea again, and then it hit Dean. He had made that goddamn tea _hours_ ago. What the hell was Sam doing still drinking it?

He was across the room and wrenching the cup out of Sam's hands in an instant. Sniffing it, and oh Christ that was gross. Freaky shampoo-smelling tea really didn't mix with vodka. Plus, there was the fact that _when the hell had Sam put vodka in his tea_? "Jesus, Sam," he growled.

Sam just looked up at him from under his bangs, the corner of his mouth twitching. "I was wondering how long it would take," he said.

Dean stared. "You think this is _funny_?"

Sam almost grinned, and it was lucky he didn't because Dean was ready to go another round by this point. "You don't really expect me to take it seriously?"

Dean was kind of floored. He'd expected shouting, accusations, some of that anger shit that Sam had been pretty good at so far. He hadn't expected Sam to laugh at him. It felt pretty much totally unfair.

Well, if Sam was going to be an asshole about it, then he would too. He pulled Sam's jacket open, patting him down, ignoring Sam's curses and attempts to fend him off, and it didn't take more than a second or two to find the mostly-empty half-size bottle of vodka stowed in an inside pocket.

"You know that's a violation of my rights as a citizen, right?" Sam said, but he still sounded kind of amused. Bastard.

"I thought you said vodka was Dad's drink," Dean said, trying to hurt, because goddamn Sam deserved it.

"Yeah, well," Sam shrugged, looking away. "Like father, like son."

Dean stared at him for a moment, then pushed past him to the kitchen where Jim was chopping vegetables, tipped the last of the vodka down the sink and threw the bottle into the trash with such force that it broke. Jim raised his eyebrows.

"You boys need any help in there?"

Dean didn't look at him. "We're fine," he said.

----

Dinner was kind of quiet. Jim offered them wine and Dean refused for both of them. Sam kind of quirked his eyebrows at that and smirked slightly, but didn't protest. Still thought it was funny. Dean was fuming, worse than the time that Sam had gone to a friend's house after school and forgotten to call, worse than the time he'd been pissed at Dad and run off during a hunt and almost got mauled to death, worse than _any_ of the times, _any_ of them. Pissed off. There should be a better word for that, one that sounded like a freakin chainsaw or something, but it would have to do. And the weird thing about it was, it should be _Sam_ that was fuming. Sam had been pissed at him pretty much the whole time for the last six days, and now Dean was trying to run Sam's life and Sam thought it was a big freakin _joke_.

Of course, Dean knew the explanation for that. Sam didn't think that Dean was going to follow through.

But Sam didn't know Dean.

----

The bedroom was the same one he remembered, with the same ugly-ass wallpaper, but no child-sized beds. Instead, Jim shoved the few pieces of furniture against the wall and laid down two bedrolls on the floor. It was probably more comfortable than sleeping with their legs hanging off the ends of the beds, but it still felt _wrong_.

Dean didn't think he'd be able to sleep, but truth was he hadn't had enough sleep in the last few days to keep an anaemic housefly alive, and he dropped off almost immediately, dreaming of sweet merciful fuck-all, until something woke him in the middle of the night (or two in the morning, to be precise), and he rolled over to see Sam's bed empty.

A sick feeling of deja vu rolled through him, but thankfully it only lasted a second, before he heard the toilet flush and Sam's broad shadow stepped over him and clambered back into his sleeping bag, clearly trying to make as little noise as possible. Dean didn't go back to sleep, though, because something else had occurred to him, and when he was sure from Sam's even breathing that his brother was out cold, he quietly made his way downstairs and searched all the cupboards in the house, collecting together the wine, the whisky and the freakin cough syrup. When he was sure he had it all, he padded outside barefoot and locked the collection in the trunk of the Impala. On the way back in, he snaked Sam's key from his jacket pocket, wrinkling his nose again at the freakin troll (which really made no sense even now – this Sam _really_ didn't seem like a pink-haired troll kind of guy). OK, so maybe Jim would notice his booze was missing, but hopefully by then Sam would be over the worst of it. Or Sam would be back to normal.

At any rate, now Dean could sleep.

He woke up again at about five thirty in the morning, and knew from the pressure on his bladder and the fact that Sam's sleeping bag was empty again that he wasn't going to to be getting any more zs that night.

He found Sam in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards. He watched him for a moment, and Sam's awareness of his surroundings really _was_ kind of fucked up, because he didn't sense Dean at all until Dean said _looking for something?_ and Sam cracked his head on the roof of the cupboard he was looking in and turned round looking pissed and sort of guilty (but mainly pissed) and gave a kind of semi shrug.

"You won't find any," Dean said. "You're not the only one with insomnia."

Sam rolled his eyes and muttered something about looking for cereal. He looked pretty much like crap, but Dean could live with that. He figured Sam would look worse by the end of the day. There wasn't a whole lot he could do about that, though, so he put it out of his mind for now and went to find some breakfast.

OK, weird. What the hell was a priest doing with freakin Lucky Charms? One day, Dean was going to have to have a really long talk with Jim. For now, though, he was just going to be pleased that something cool happened to him for once. He poured two bowls full, and pushed one towards Sam.

Sam stared at it, and then at Dean. "You're serious? You're going to eat that crap at six o' clock in the morning?"

Dean grinned through a mouthful of marshmallows. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

"Yeah, and you're ingesting enough sugar to put an elephant in a coma."

_Ingesting_ was a weird word. Sounded kind of dirty. "Got a busy day ahead, Sam. Books to read, spells to reverse." Other stuff too, but not stuff Dean wanted to dwell on. He'd have to deal with it soon enough anyway.

Sam looked down at his bowl again and made a face. "Yeah, well. I'm not hungry."

Dean thought about pushing, but decided against it. He couldn't exactly force-feed Sam Lucky Charms. Well, actually he could, and in other circumstances it might be freakin hilarious, but, well, pretty much not a good idea today. Today he needed Sam on his side as much as possible. Instead, he finished his bowl and said, "You sure?"

Sam kind of tilted his head and said, "Yeah. Thanks, though."

Dean shrugged and reached for the bowl. Sam looked horrified. "No way. Two bowls of that shit?"

Dean grinned again. "Gotta make up for all the times you had the last bowl when we were kids, Sammy."

A look of wistfulness flitted over Sam's face so quickly that Dean thought maybe he had imagined it. Then he smirked. "Yeah, well, don't blame me if you puke."

----

In the end, it was Sam who puked, though.

Dean had pretty much been expecting it. The Winchesters were no stranger to withdrawal symptoms, after a hunt had gone bad when Dean was sixteen and John had come back from the hospital addicted to painkillers. He was John Winchester, of course, and he had a mission, and so as soon as he had realised what was going on he had made Dean tie him to the bed and promise not to let him go for thirty-six hours, and that had been the longest day-and-a-half of Dean's life, listening to his father groan and hiss and throw up, and to Sam's stifled sobs from the other room where he had been banished. So yeah, he knew what to expect, and when Sam stood up about halfway through the morning, a couple of hours after Jim had come and gone to do the whole church thing or whatever, and Dean moved automatically to block the door, and Sam gave him this look and said _you better move if you don't want me to puke on your shoes_, it didn't take Dean very long to come to the conclusion that actually Sam puking on his shoes was really not what he needed right now, and to let Sam push past him to the bathroom. He considered following him in there, but the door slammed in his face, and so he just stood in the corridor trying not to hear the retching noises and wishing he was on a beach in Hawaii or a bar in Tennessee or actually pretty much anywhere else than standing in a dingy hallway listening to his little brother throw up.

The noises stopped after a while, then there was the sound of running water and the door suddenly swung open.

"Jesus," said Sam, leaning in the doorway and looking freakin gigantic as usual. "You were listening? That's sick."

Dean shrugged. "Gotta get my rocks off somehow."

Sam screwed up his face, then started for the front door. Sam's legs were longer, but Dean was faster anyway.

"Where do you think you're going, sunshine?"

Sam stared at him. "You're not serious?"

"As liver failure," said Dean, but Sam didn't flinch.

"I need some air," he said stubbornly.

"Somehow I don't think the sort of air they serve in bars is gonna make you feel better," Dean noted.

Sam shook his head and took a step forward, but Dean pushed him back, and not as gently as he might have, either, because this whole thing was pretty much pissing him the hell off. Sam stared.

"What, you gonna keep me prisoner now?" he asked. "You wanna handcuff me again?"

Dean didn't move. "If I have to."

"This is a joke," Sam said, but he didn't sound amused. "I'm twenty-three years old, man. I've been looking after myself my entire life. I don't need your help."

"Yeah, because you've been doing such a bang-up job so far." Dean kind of didn't want to be confrontational, but actually, he kind of did. Sam needed to know he wasn't going to budge on this one.

Looked like Sam was getting that message loud and clear. "For Christ's sake," he said, his voice rising rapidly. "Where the hell do you get off telling me what I can and can't do? You're a goddamn control freak, you know that?"

Dean just shrugged. "Yelling at me ain't gonna change anything."

"I'll do more than freakin yell," Sam growled, and he pushed forward, trying to dodge past Dean, relying on his weight to help force his way through, but of course Dean had the drop, he had years of training and he hadn't just puked his guts up, and after a bit of struggling from Sam and a few well-placed shoves from Dean, the net result was Sam narrowly avoiding going sprawling on the floor.

When he regained his balance, his death-glare was pretty much burning holes in the wall, but Dean had survived plenty of Sam's death-glares before and he would survive this one too.

"Fuck you," said Sam. "_Fuck_ you, Dean. You're a fucking asshole."

OK, this was getting kind of boring now. "Oh, so I'm an asshole for trying to protect my brother now? I'd love to hear how you figure that one."

Sam took a step back, and ran a trembling hand through his hair. "Jesus," he said. "Jesus. Why does it even matter?"

Now it was Dean's turn to be incredulous. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Sam was kind of pacing now, one step to the wall of the hallway, then one step back to the other wall. Dean was kind of reminded of one time they had gone to the zoo (to exorcise a penguin or some such shit) and he had seen the big cats in cages that were too small, pacing their lives away while people stared at them. Except they probably weren't freakin drunks. Big cats were more the heroin type anyway.

"Look," Sam said, as if he was trying to figure something out, "in a couple of days you'll have this all figured out, you'll do whatever crazy spell or whatever you need to reverse this whole thing, and then you'll have your brother back and he'll be all teetotal or whatever, so what the hell does it matter if I have some fun in the meantime? It's not going to mean anything in the long run."

Dean had only really focussed on one part of that speech. "_You're_ my brother."

"No I'm _not_, Dean," Sam said, almost yelled really. "You think DNA is what makes us who we are? It's not, it's memories and experience. I don't remember ever having Lucky Charms when I was a kid. I don't remember hunting ghosts or whatever with you and Dad. I'm not your brother. And I'll be gone soon anyway, so really, you're wasting your time here."

"Hey," Dean was getting kind of confused by the turn the conversation was taking, but he was pretty damn sure he didn't care for it. "You're not going anywhere. You're just going to be back to normal, that's all."

Sam laughed, _God_ Dean was really starting to loathe that laugh. "Oh yeah? Do you think your Sam'll remember being me when he comes back? I'll be gone, Dean, like I never existed."

OK, _that_ was totally fucked up. And if Sam really thought that, then why... why...

"Why did you come with me, then?" _This better not be some sick attempt at suicide, Sam, because so help me God..._

Sam stopped pacing and stared at him. "You really want to know why I came?"

Dean folded his arms. "Yeah. I really do."

Sam actually looked like he was going to spill it, too, just for a moment. But the moment passed and his mouth snapped shut and really, Dean should have known, because for all his touchy-feely let's-talk-about-our-emotions crap, Sam was a master at bottling things up.

"You know what, just forget it," Sam said, turning to go back to the library. "I cannot believe I'm in this ridiculous situation."

Dean sighed and followed. He couldn't help but agree.

----

Dean knew enough to know that it wasn't over. The first blow-up had gone pretty well, really, considering, but it was only a preliminary skirmish. He was ready for what was to come, and so when Sam didn't turn a page for over ten minutes, Dean stopped paying attention to a crabbed text written by some guy who _really_ should never have been allowed anywhere near a pen, and started watching his brother instead.

Sam was past trembling and into shaking now, little shivers running through his frame. He was staring at the book in his hands, kind of, except actually he looked pretty much like he was staring through it, and Dean didn't think that had anything to do with any freaky psychic crap. Sweat was beading on his forehead, and he seemed totally unaware of the fact that Dean was watching him, which even with the crappy spatial awareness that this Sam had been displaying was kind of odd, and Dean waited, knowing it was coming any minute.

So when Sam stumbled to his feet, dropping the book as if he'd forgotten he was holding it, Dean was already moving towards the door, getting used to the routine now, Sam moves, Dean moves faster, that was how it had to be. And Sam kind of stood in front of him, not looking him in the eye, hands loosely fisted at his sides.

"Dean," he said. "Let me go."

"Not a chance in hell," said Dean.

Sam pushed him then, shoved at him in the chest with both hands, but Dean, unprepared as he was, didn't even stagger, because the shove had about as much force behind it as a freakin baby sparrow. And they didn't even _have_ hands. Dean's hands came up, though, and he gripped Sam's wirsts carefully and saw to his discomfort that Sam looked like he was going to cry.

"Let me go," Sam said, and he didn't mean out of the room this time, so Dean let go of his arms. Sam stumbled backwards a step or two, then covered his face with his hands. "I just want some freakin air," he whispered.

Yeah, right. That excuse had been pretty much done to death by now. "I'll open a window," said Dean, and didn't move.

"God," Sam said, "why the hell are you doing this to me? Why did you have to come here?" He stepped up again, and actually took a swing this time, which would have been laughable if there had been anything humorous about the situation _at freakin all_. As it was, Dean didn't even bother to dodge, and the blow sailed past his left ear and he barely caught Sam as he fell. Six foot four of heavy brother was not exactly a walk in the park, though, and Dean kind of did a slow-motion slip to the ground thing that would have maybe looked cool if he hadn't been being dragged down by an overgrown emo kid.

Sam half-lay and half-kneeled, breathing heavily, and Dean could feel the tremors and the heat from his skin. "I hate this," he muttered, and Dean was unreasonably happy that he didn't say _I hate you_, though he figured it was only because he didn't have the energy any more.

"I know," said Dean, and managed to drag them over to the wall and prop Sam up against the bookcase. "It'll be over soon. Just ride it out."

Sam didn't answer, his eyes closed, looking like he was just concentrating on breathing. Dean rubbed his back, as if that was gonna be any goddamn help, but at least it made _Dean_ feel kind of better, and OK, that wasn't the point, but it was better than nothing. He almost didn't hear it when Sam said _I can't do this_. But he did hear, and he said _yeah, you can, I got you, it'll be fine_, so quietly that there was almost no force to the words at all, but he knew that Sam could hear him.

They sat like that for a while, Sam just breathing and Dean just doing his best to help him (except in the end no-one could breathe for Sam but _Sam_, and goddamn if Dean hadn't been pretty pissed off by that fact more than once in the past), and then things seemed to get a little better and Sam opened his eyes again and looked at Dean with this kind of bewildered expression.

"You're still here," he said, and it didn't make any goddamn sense, but Dean didn't care because he knew where that expression came from, and he was the goddamn _king_ of that particular emotion.

"I'm not going anywhere, kiddo," he said. "Except maybe to the kitchen. You want some tea?"

"Not if it's anything like yesterday's," Sam muttered, and Dean grinned.

He was running the water in the sink, waiting for it to run cold, when he heard a crack from next door that sounded worryingly like the noise his brother's skull tended to make when it hit a solid surface (and really, it was kind of fucked up that he knew that sound so well, right?). He was back in the library before he knew it, and Jesus if Sam wasn't having another freakin vision (or memory or whatever the hell he was having these days), which was just about the worst possible timing even for Sam. It looked pretty bad, too, and Sam was rolling his head forward and then throwing it back, hitting the bookcase and making that noise. _So_ not cool.

Well, this was fucking great. As if Dean didn't feel useless enough sitting next to Sam and freakin rubbing his back when he was going through withdrawal, now he was stuck with pretty much having to do the same thing when the little fucker was doing withdrawal and freaky psychic shit at the same time. Sam really knew how to pile on the drama, and Dean was totally gonna kick his ass when he was better for pushing all those buttons, on purpose or not. Dean Winchester just didn't do useless.

And then it was over, and Sam made this kind of whimpering noise like he was trying to speak but had forgotten how and curled his head under his arms, and Dean put an arm around him and thought that _useless_ didn't even begin to cover it. He reached for the trashcan and pulled it closer, in case of another attack of the vomit monster, and found that actually he was finding it kind of hard to breathe himself, now. Great. Turns out withdrawal is contagious, or some such shit.

Then Sam said something, but the effect was kind of lost because he said it through about three feet of hair and denim and thigh, which meant that Dean did't hear a freakin word, but he heard the tone, and that made him nervous.

"What, Sam?" he asked, trying to disentangle Sam's head from his arms and legs (which turned out to be really freakin _hard_, because it seemed like Sam had five miles of limbs or something). Eventually, Sam's face resurfaced, and he blinked and looked like shit and kind of like he might throw up again and said

"Dean, it wasn't me."

Dean blinked. OK, so the urgency was still there, but the sentence didn't make any sense, right? OK, yeah, the _grammar_ or whatever made sense, but it was a total non-whatever the hell those things were that Sam sometimes accused him of doing, and what was Dean supposed to do with that?

"No-one's accusing you of anything, Sam," he attempted.

Sam shook his head, and then made a weird noise and looked like he was going to retreat under his arms again, but didn't. "_No_, Dean, I mean yesterday and today, in my memory. It wasn't a memory. It wasn't _me_."

Dean tried to work this out, but a sick feeling in his stomach told him that maybe he didn't really want to. How could Sam have a memory that didn't have him in it?

"Who was it?" he asked, still not really getting the hang of this conversation.

"I think..." Sam brought his hand up and rubbed it over his face, and he was still shaking, Dean saw. "I think it was your Sam."

If Dean hadn't been sitting on the floor already, he would probably have fallen down. Lucky there wasn't anywhere further to fall. "That doesn't make any sense." _Like anything has made sense for days_. "How do you know it wasn't you?"

Sam looked away, hiding beneath his bangs. "I was... he was... shouting. Calling. For you."

OK, that whole thing about there not being any further to fall? Bullshit. "What did you see?"

Sam took a deep breath and clenched his hands on top of his knees. "He's in a hospital. A... a psychiatric hospital, I think. He's scared. He's calling for you, over and over. God, Dean, _screaming_."

Dean didn't want to hear any more. "Did you see where it was? Who was hurting him? When it might happen?"

Sam shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

_Sorry_. Sam was always sorry. But it was always Dean who fucked up.

"Please, Dean," Sam whispered. "Please let me go."

_Oh, Jesus, Sammy, please don't ask me that now. I can't bear this. I can't freakin do it._ But he would do it of course, because what other choice did he have? He wrapped his arm tighter round Sam, half to comfort him and half to immobilise him. "It's gonna be OK," he whispered.

Sam buried his head again, and he might have been crying, but Dean couldn't tell because he was shaking too hard anyway. Dean kind of felt like crying himself. Wondered what would happen if he just curled up here and cried until he fell asleep, and then woke up and went and got a job at a supermarket and found himself a place to live and pretended that Dean Winchester really had never existed.

If he did that, this Sam would probably die in a bar fight, and his Sam would be stuck in a freakin nuthouse, and how did that make sense since they were the _same freakin person_, and how could he even contemplate doing that anyway?

Jim came back to find them still there, sitting next to each other on the floor, Sam shivering and curled up, Dean just kind of staring, knowing he looked freaked, but not able to stop it. And Jim got Sam to bed and gave Dean some coffee and settled him down at the table and asked.

And Dean couldn't not tell him.

----

"Psychic," said Jim thoughtfully.

"Yeah," muttered Dean. "Visions, anyway." The telekinesis didn't need to be mentioned. It had only happened once.

"You didn't think it would be useful to tell me this?"

Dean shrugged. "We haven't told anyone." Even Sam didn't know about it till yesterday. Pretty freakin weird.

"Well, that changes some things. The patterns I'll be looking for. I called a friend of mine, Bobby Singer, he knows a lot about demons, keeps his eye on things."

"Yeah," Dean said, feeling exhausted. "I know Bobby."

Jim didn't miss a beat. "Right, well, he's looking into it. I'll call him again, tell him about Sam's abilities. It might help."

Dean felt wary. "Tell him not to tell anyone else, OK?" He trusted Bobby, trusted Jim, but the last thing they needed was for word to get around about Sam when he was so defenceless.

"OK," Jim said, not asking why. Then he shifted and cleared his throat. "Well, at least we know more about what happened to you."

"We do?" Dean kind of felt like he should understand more, like Sam's vision should have clicked the pieces together in his brain, but all it had done was pour a lump of curdled fear into his belly that sat there like a bad freakin breakfast burrito or something.

Jim gave him a funny look. "We know that reality hasn't changed. That you've somehow transferred to a different reality. Your reality is still out there, and all you have to do is find a way back, which should be a lot easier than making the whole of this reality change."

Dean thought about it. That made sense, fit with Sam's vision, fit with everything that he remembered so far, the keys and the empty trunk and his own four-year-old face staring up at him from a newspaper article about a house fire.

But that meant that Sam had been alone for six days, _six freakin days_, and somehow in that time Sam had managed to get himself committed, or would do soon, which was almost laughable really, only Sam could manage to fuck things up so very royally in such a short space of time, but all the same Dean didn't laugh because in the end what the hell was there to laugh about.

_As long as I'm around, nothing bad's going to happen to you_.

Dean hadn't been around. And something bad had happened to Sam.

"You got any books about transferring realities?" And what the hell was it with this _Star Trek_ crap, anyway? Dean's life was meant to be a bad horror movie, not a freakin space opera.

"We'll keep looking," Jim assured him, getting up from the table. "Oh, and Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said, trying to rub the gritty feeling away from his eyes.

"Is there anything else you're not telling me?"

Dean hesitated. _My brother's an alcoholic. But it's OK, I'm fixing it. I'm really freakin great at fixing things, you've noticed that, right?_ "No."

"OK," Jim said, and Dean wondered whether he should have told him.

He would have wondered it again when he entered the bedroom to find Sam convulsing on the floor, but he was too terrified to think.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: disclaim, disclaim disclaim.

Many, many thanks to Death-Muncher, Anora, carocali, Mellaithwen, Lili Martinez, PissedOffEskimo, Cupido, Kaewi, SilverKitsune1, sugarquill4ron, Annibal, Harrigan, PadfootObsessed329, Faye Dartmouth, mtee1958, roxy071288, MistyEyes, Dean's Girl, Onari, sasha2002 and the Cat's Whiskers for reviewing chapter 6. I am overwhelmed by all your kindness. I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!

----

"_We'll keep looking," Jim assured him, getting up from the table. "Oh, and Dean?"_

_"Yeah," Dean said, trying to rub the gritty feeling away from his eyes._

_"Is there anything else you're not telling me?"_

_Dean hesitated. _My brother's an alcoholic. But it's OK, I'm fixing it. I'm really freakin great at fixing things, you've noticed that, right?_ "No."_

_"OK," Jim said, and Dean wondered whether he should have told him._

_He would have wondered it again when he entered the bedroom to find Sam convulsing on the floor, but he was too terrified to think._

**But for the Grace, Chapter 7**

Jolt.

_Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit._

Dean was on his knees next to Sam, trying to immobilise him, stop his limbs from thrashing. He didn't know how he had got there. He didn't really know anything, because his brain seemed to have turned into an echoing void rushing with fear, and reality seemed to be coming and going in these jerky, jolting bursts of sound and images that didn't connect, like stop-motion photography or whatever.

Jolt.

_Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck._

And wasn't that just typical of his brain, to collapse into uselessness just when Dean needed it most? On the other hand, his body seemed to be doing pretty well without it, and the single part of his consciousness that seemed to be entirely unaffected by the whole situation (but was just as useless as the rest of his brain, seeing as all it seemed to be doing was going off on mental tangents that really weren't doing anyone any good) noted that he was _really fucking glad_ that Jim had moved all the furniture to the edges of the room, because Sam's flailing body was pretty much taking up the entire floor space, and at least this way it was relatively easy to stop him from hurting himself on anything.

Jolt.

_Goddamn running out of decent curse-words._

He must have yelled something, though he didn't remember doing it, because Jim was behind him suddenly, asking him a question which Dean couldn't hear through the roaring sound in his ears, and couldn't answer anyway because the part of his mind that controlled his lips and tongue seemed to be one of the bits that had just been erased, and he wondered vaguely if all of these mental faculties that he remembered having once would ever come back.

_Why the hell don't I just stop rambling on and _do_ something?_

Jolt.

Then Sam had stilled, well, kind of stilled, he was still shaking pretty hard but it wasn't the crazy jerking of a moment earlier, the kind that made him look like some kid had snuck into the puppet-master's office and decided to mess with the strings. He blinked up at Dean, his eyes kind of unfocussed. A blood vessel had burst in one of them.

"I'm calling an ambulance," said Jim, and Dean realised he could hear again, which was definitely going to come in handy in the future. A second later, he noticed that Sam's hand had shot out past him and grabbed Jim's wrist, and despite the pathetic kitten-weakness he'd been displaying earlier, and the fact that he'd just had a freakin _seizure_ for Christ's sake, his grip was obviously strong enough to stop Jim from leaving the room.

"No hospital," he said hoarsely.

"Sam..." Dean started, because he freakin hated hospitals but he wasn't too goddamn keen on Sam's head exploding either.

"No," Sam said. "No hospital."

Sam's eyelids slipped half-closed, his teeth chattering. Jim put his hand on Dean's shoulder and said _does this always happen?_

For a moment, Dean couldn't understand what he meant. Then he realised Jim thought that this was a part of the psychic thing. And _oh Jesus Christ, thank God it's not_. But he had to tell Jim. Should have told him before.

"He's, uh..." Dean cleared his throat. "He's going cold turkey."

He felt Jim tense behind him. "Cold turkey from what?"

Dean looked down. Sam's eyes were still half-open, but he didn't seem to be paying attention to what was going on around him. "Booze," he said. _My little brother's a drunk. Guess Dad did leave him something other than the Impala._

Jim cursed softly behind him, and that was definitely _not_ the priest voice. "How long?" he asked.

"Uh..." Dean thought about it, but the anxiety in Jim's voice was booking his own fear on a freakin comback tour. When had Sam last had any alcohol? Yesterday? Tequila on his breath... vodka in his tea... Sam's shaking started to get worse, and that was pretty much all that was required to make Dean's brain shut down again. Goddamn useless brain.

Jolt.

Jim had said something and left the room, and Dean didn't understand what he said, but he caught the urgency in his tone, even though it wasn't really freakin necessary to communicate urgency to Dean any more because Sam's body suddenly stiffened and started to jerk again and that was pretty much like the most urgent urgency that ever urged (OK, so the part of Dean's mind that still seemed to keep working even in... uh... urgent situations was pretty much totally lame). Dean didn't know what the hell to do, didn't know what was going on, but he grabbed Sam's arms by the inside of his elbows and tried to hold him down, covering Sam's body with his as much as he could and getting a good few bruises in the process from thrashing limbs. It was kind of like being in a bar fight on Sam's side. It was kind of like his entire life over the last few days.

Jolt.

Jim was back in the room, and Sam's convulsing was downgrading to twitching, and Dean was pretty sure that he was going to need to throw up pretty soon, which would be two for two with Winchesters and vomit that day. Now all they needed to do was feed Jim some bad shellfish and they'd have a hat-trick. Reality jolted again, then Jim was pulling him off Sam and lifting Sam's head, tipping a cup against his lips. Sam swallowed convulsively and sort of choked, but Jim made a nonsensical soothing noise and Sam drank some more. Dean just blinked and stared, not even trying to work out what was going on. He felt like he hadn't slept in ten years.

When the cup was empty, Jim turned and said _help me, would you?_ and Dean shuffled forward on his ass (because dignity was pretty much overrated when your sort-of brother had just had two seizures in front of you) and held Sam's head up, and then Jim was handing him the cup and it was full again, full of something dark and purple-red, and Dean put it to Sam's lips and before he registered the oaky smell.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered, and really, he'd intended to yell, but it seemed like his freakin vocal chords were about as useful as the rest of his body right now, and making any noise at all seemed to take more effort than lifting a freakin ten-ton truck with his bare hands (not that he actually knew how much effort that would take, but he figured it was probably pretty much a lot). "You've got to be shitting me. You're giving him wine?" He almost threw the cup across the room, but it turned out that whole ten-ton truck thing applied to his arms as well.

"Dean," Jim said, taking the cup from him but not trying to make Sam drink, which was good because if he had Dean might have had to find out what it was like to punch a priest, and he was fairly sure that was pretty much a one-way ticket to hell. "Alcohol's not like other drugs. You can't just stop using it. It can be fatal."

Jolt.

_Fatal_.

Jim hadn't stopped talking, though. "It unbalances your brain chemistry. They have drugs to help with detoxing, but for the time being we have to give Sam something to keep him stable until we can get him some help. You can't let him do this again, Dean."

_Fatal. Let him._

Dean felt his fists clench hard under Sam's body, and it hurt where his nails dug into his skin, but he figured he pretty much deserved that. _Let Sam do it_. Yeah, that was a joke. He hadn't _let_ Sam do anything, he had _made_ him do it, cut him off without even doing any research on the subject, and he had almost managed to freakin kill his little brother. Dean was beginning to think that maybe he should just do the opposite of whatever he decided from now on, because goddamn if every single decision he had made in the last few days hadn't freakin blown up in his face. Oh yeah, he was the go-to guy for bad choices all right.

Jim was feeding Sam the wine again, and Sam was sort of semi-conscious now, his eyelids hanging heavy, but he wasn't protesting. Well, that made sense. The little bastard was getting what he'd been begging for all day, and Dean was helping to give it to him. And wasn't that just a kick in the head, because yesterday Dean had sworn that he wasn't ever letting his brother near alcohol again, and today he was practically shoving it down his throat.

Oh yeah, Dean was all about keeping his promises.

But Sam was alive, Sam was breathing and swallowing and sort of conscious, and his eyes weren't rolling in his head the way they had been moments before. And if it took all the booze in the world to do that, then Dean would go and knock over a liquor store right now.

When the hell did his life get so completely screwed up?

After Sam had managed to swallow two and a half cups of wine, Jim was satisfied. "Dean, we need to talk," he said softly. "Outside."

Dean shook his head. He wasn't ready, not yet, not for this. "Just give me a little while, OK, Jim? I want to make sure he's OK."

Jim frowned, but nodded and left the room. Dean just sat, watching Sam, who was kind of staring groggily at the ceiling like – well, kind of like someone who'd just had two seizures and half a bottle of wine. The room was quiet as the freakin grave, and Dean could hear Sam's ragged breathing (or maybe it was his own, who the hell could freakin tell any more?).

"Christ, Sam," Dean muttered after a while. "You scared the crap out of me."

He hadn't really expected Sam to answer, thought he was still pretty much out of it, but Sam turned his head a bit and coughed, and said, "I wasn't exactly having an awesome time myself."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, well, don't do it again, you hear?"

"Whatever," Sam muttered. He stared at the ceiling for a bit more, then said, "What'd Jim give me, anyway?"

Dean reached over for the bottle, examining the label and remembering that he'd locked all the booze in the house into the trunk of the car, then grinned. "Communion wine," he said.

Sam started laughing, a rough, sandpapery sound sure, but goddammit, it was an actual _real_ laugh, showing up at maybe the most inappropriate time _ever_ but sounding damn good to Dean all the same. "Jesus saves, right?"

----

Sam fell asleep soon after, his shaking back down to trembling now, and Dean awkwardly did his best to tuck him into the sleeping bag, then sighed. He was going to have face Jim eventually. That was going to suck. Jim's voice came back to him, just repeating one word over and over. _Fatal_._ Fatal. Fatal._

_Oh, for Christ's sake Jim, shut up_.

Jim was reading when Dean entered the kitchen, and he looked up when Dean came in and composed his features. Damn, there was a priest face to go with the priest voice. Now Dean _knew_ he was in deep shit.

"How is he?"

Dean shrugged. "Sleeping." _Could have died._

Jim looked him up and down carefully, and Dean couldn't be bothered to try and look like anything he wasn't any more. He was a worn-out twenty-six year old who'd been hunting evil half his life and somehow had managed to get stuck in a broken reality while both his actual brother and his brother's freaky alternate counterpart (who was _also_ his brother, kind of) needed help he couldn't provide. He felt like crap. And he was pretty sure he looked it, too.

Jim clearly thought so. "I'd offer you a drink, but I can't seem to find any of my whisky," he said.

Dean smirked slightly at that. "It's in the trunk of my... of Sam's car." He tossed Jim the keys and flopped down at the table.

There was a stack of leaflets sitting there on the scratched wood, colourful and shiny like goddamn candy or whatever, and Dean glanced at the top one. It had a picture of a woman smiling like she'd just won the lottery or fucked Brad Pitt or something, and a caption that read _Oakridge Clinic. We're here to help you through_.

Dean growled, and started going through the pile. Three different rehab clinics, all with pictures of people who looked like they'd just been given some really good drugs rather than come off them. It was like freakin Stepford Wives or something. Dean was pretty sure he'd rather go in those places reciting Latin and throwing salt than send Sam in there alone.

The bottom two leaflets were different. No crazy grinning zombies, for one thing. The first read _Living with alcoholism_, and the second just said _Guide to Delirium Tremens_. Dean thought about it for a minute, then pocketed the first. The second he opened, thinking vaguely that the Latin term on the front might mean that it was something to do with hunting (and really, that was a pretty goddamn genius thing to think, because since when had hunters ever produced shiny leaflets, with or without zombie chicks on them? He could see it now: _Living with Poltergeists. Ten steps to surviving demonic possession. Lycanthropy: a self-help guide._)

Anyway, the leaflet turned out not to be about hunting after all (no big surprise there, right?), and as Dean read down the symptoms it listed and recognised more and more of them, he began to feel pretty fucking terrible (well, he had felt pretty fucking terrible already, but hey, there was always further to fall, right?). At the bottom of the list, under _seizures_ and _psychosis_, was the word _death_.

Dean kind of stared at that word, looking so short and innocent next to all the other fancy medical terms, and willed it to turn into something else. But it didn't, just seemed to stare back at him from the page, like it was goddamn accusing him of something, and then Jim came back carrying a bottle of whisky and Dean shoved the leaflet in his pocket and pretended to be examining his fingernails.

"I talked to Bobby," Jim said once they both had a glass in front of them and he was settled at the table. "He said it sounds like you could be being affected by a souped-up version of a spell medieval witches used to visit the devil."

Dean stared. "Uh, I hate to break it to you, Jim, but, OK, Blue Earth ain't exactly Vegas, but it ain't hell either."

Jim snorted into his whisky. "It's a transfer spell, Dean. Bobby's never heard about it being used to transfer to a whole different reality rather than just onto another plane, but he says he doesn't see why not, if the caster had enough power."

Dean thought about this. Almost all his life he'd been aware of the supernatural, of there being places – other planes or whatever – that humans couldn't see or touch, where everything was probably freaky and fucked up and kind of like being in Salt Lake City on a bad day. That was not a problem. On the other hand, this whole alternate reality thing sounded like some hokey plot from a bad sci-fi movie, and _that_ was more difficult to believe, because come on, OK, heaven and hell and all that crap was fine, but freakin string theory and quantum physics? Could those guys _be_ any less credible?

And yet, here he was, and Sam was having visions about... uh... _Sam_, and there was really no other explanation that even made that amount of sense. So Dean guessed he was pretty much resigned to being stuck in a freakin low-rent version of _Star Wars_.

And then there was the witchcraft thing. Dean freakin _hated_ witchcraft. Spells and mumbo-jumbo and posers dressed up in black like they invented the goddamn colour, plus all that goddamn Harry Potter shit. Seriously. Harry Potter and Star Wars put together? Someone upstairs was definitely having some fun at Dean's expense.

"So how do we break it?"

"We can't," Jim said, and when Dean stared at him in horror he said, "the spell's already over, its influence has dissipated. We need to cast another one to get you back where you belong."

_Well, that's just freakin great_. _Just put me in a dress and call me Dumbledore._ "So, know any decent witches?"

"Anyone can do the spell, Dean," Jim said. "It's pretty simple, really. Seven herbs, fat of a goat, blood of a bat, the usual stuff. But we need the power, and we need to be very careful, because you could wind up anywhere if we don't do it right."

Dean stared. "Seriously? A bat? That's gross."

Jim sighed. "We also need a way to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said, ignoring Dean's remark, and really, it was pretty much exactly like having a conversation with the other Jim. "There's no point sending you back if whoever sent you here in the first place is just going to do it again. We need you to be protected."

Dean sat back and took a gulp of whisky. "OK, we need power and we need some freaky mojo to make me immune to Harry and his buddies," he said. "Care to tell me where we're going to get it?"

Jim didn't look the slightest bit phased by his reference, and Dean had a sudden vision of the old priest reading kids' books under the blankets at night when no-one was watching. "I don't know yet, but give me a while to research and I hope I'll have an answer for you."

"OK," Dean said, getting up and stretching out his shoulders. Man, he felt crappy. "You got the internet?"

"Sit down," said Jim quietly. "We're not done talking."

_Why is nobody ever freakin done talking in this freakin reality?_ Dean swallowed a retort and sat again. He was pretty sure he knew what this was going to be about.

"You need to decide what to do about Sam," said Jim. He gestured at the leaflets. "There are some good clinics in Minnesota."

"Neither of us has the money for that," Dean said, shifting uncomfortably. He wasn't about to mention that he could scam the cash pretty easily. Those goddamn zombies were still grinning at him from the leaflets.

"I could help you out, get you special rates," Jim said, and he was using the priest voice again, goddamn, couldn't he just _stop_ with that shit? "If Sam wants to get clean, he needs help to do it."

_If Sam wants to get clean_. And what if he didn't? What if it was just _Dean_ who wanted Sam to get clean, because Sam didn't seem to give two goddamn shits about his life, and that freaked Dean out more than any number of monsters under the bed?

Jim misinterpreted his silence. "It would only have to be for a month or so. Then he could go into outpatient care."

And that made Dean's mind up. _A month_. In a month, Dean would be gone, back to his own dimension or whatever, and Sam would come out of the clinic and he would have no-one. And Dean was pretty sure he knew exactly what the first thing Sam would do then would be.

"No," he said, more harshly than he'd intended to, but it got the message across.

"Dean," Jim started, but Dean wasn't about to have this argument, not now, not when he felt like he'd been hit by a freakin emotional _truck_ today.

"No, Jim," he said firmly. "Sam's my family. He's not like other people, and they can't help him in there. He's coming with me."

Jim watched him for a moment (again with the watching, Jesus), and then sighed. "If you take him to the hospital, they're going to want him in a programme before they prescribe him detox drugs. If you don't get him the drugs, you'll have to let him drink enough to keep his brain chemistry stable."

And that would have sounded pretty much like the worst idea ever to Dean, except that the idea of sending his unbelievably emo brother off to rehab with a bunch of crazy zombie strangers and then never seeing him again had already taken that prize, so he just nodded and said again, "So, you got the internet?"

Jim shook his head. "I think you need to get some rest, Dean."

And Dean was not about to argue with that.

----

The next morning, Dean was up early, feeling not exactly rested, but not like he'd just climbed out of a goddamn shallow grave any more, either. Jim looked like he'd been up all night, but he had good news. Kinda.

"Objects of power are few and far between on this side of the Atlantic, Dean," he said, and Dean settled down for a lecture and tried to look like he was listening. He'd long since perfected the art of thinking about other stuff (_cars, girls, chick-flicks – no, wait_) while letting his brain pick out the salient points of whatever geeky crap Sam was blathering on about. This time he kind of heard _private collection_ and _ancient artefact_ and _Spokane_, and then Jim stopped talking and looked at him expectantly, and Dean grinned and said

"OK, you got a picture of this thing?" like he'd been all ears the whole time.

Jim showed him the picture, and Dean examined it carefully, along with the reports of the break-in several months earlier that Jim had pulled off the web. The object – Dean wasn't even sure what it was, it was kind of squat and stubby and looked maybe like a novelty cell-phone holder or something, though Jim said it was nearly a thousand years old so Dean supposed that probably wasn't what it had originally been meant to be – didn't look like much.

"So that's gonna send me back, huh?" Dean said doubtfully. _Doesn't look like it could send anything, except maybe a freakin text message._

"Let's hope so," said Jim, and frankly, Dean had been hoping for something a little more reassuring than that, but right now he would take what he could get. Two days of sitting around reading books by people who didn't know how to write written for people who didn't know how to read (or at least read _decent_ stuff, like comics and skin mags) was beginning to feel like a life sentence, and he was more than happy to hit the road.

Time to wake Sam.

----

Sam groaned and muttered something as Dean prodded him in the shoulder, finally rolling over and swatting the hand away.

"Dude, what is your problem," he growled.

"Rise and shine, princess," Dean said. "We got stuff to do."

"We do?" Sam sat up, wincing slightly, and looked suspicious. "What stuff?"

"Gotta see a man about some magic beans," Dean said, handing him a cup. Sam sniffed it and looked at him in surprise. "Yeah, and that's all you're getting, so you better enjoy it while you can," Dean noted, and tried not to feel nauseous at giving his brother wine in the morning like it was freakin breakfast juice.

Sam frowned, but took a sip anyway. "Magic beans," he said slowly.

"Yeah," said Dean. "Get dressed. We're hitting the road in fifteen."

"Where are we going?" Sam asked as Dean left the room, because he really did not want to watch his brother drink that goddamn wine, blessed by freakin Jesus or no.

"Washington state," Dean said, and when Sam gaped he grinned. "Magic beans grow best in the Pacific North-West," he said, like it was some goddamn advertising jingle or something, and Sam rolled his eyes, and for some reason that made Dean feel better.

----

They were about an hour west of Blue Earth when Dean pulled over next to a grocery store in the middle of nowhere. He figured Sam couldn't exactly find a bar out here. "Stay in the car," he said, and pocketed the keys. Sam gave him an exasperated look, and Dean knew that he was still smarting over not being allowed to drive. _But it's my freakin car_, he had yelled, and Dean had been uncomfortably reminded of his own annoyance a few days earlier, but that hadn't increased his sympathy one bit. _Shoulda thought of that before you decided that 'drunk' was a good look this season, shouldn't ya?_

And eventually, Sam had had to agree, because his options were going with Dean or going to the hospital, and Sam had already made it pretty damn clear that he would rather kiss a freakin rawhead than take door number two, which Dean could kind of understand, because God knew hospitals were pretty much below wendigo-lairs and open graves on his list of places he didn't want to be, but kind of couldn't, because Sam was so freakin _adamant_, and Dean didn't know what it was that had made his brother so frightened of playing doctor. Well, whatever, Dean was driving anyway, and Sam was going to like it or shut the hell up about it.

Sam looked up from the book he was reading when Dean came back and dumped a six-pack in the trunk. "Beer?" he asked.

"Damn straight," said Dean. "You're not getting any of that hard liquor shit any more. And we're not going to any more bars, you hear? This face is too pretty to get messed up with a pool cue."

Sam was watching him. "Uh," he said, sounding kind of confused. "I thought... I mean, what about..."

Dena sighed. They hadn't really talked yet, mainly because Dean had a headache and, much as he was glad to be on the road and _doing_ something again, discussing his brother's alcoholism and the freakin fucked up way he was planning on dealing with it was just not something he was into right now. "Look," he said. "Jim says you gotta have some, otherwise your brain's gonna go haywire."

Sam frowned.

"Yeah, I know," Dean snorted. "I told him your brain was pretty much a lost cause, but, you know, priests." He shrugged and changed the subject. "Whatcha readin, geek boy?"

Sam shifted in his seat. "Do you always talk to me like this?"

"Hell, no," Dean said, starting the car. "Sometimes I'm rude."

Sam's lips twitched, and he looked like he was fighting a smile. Dean grinned, pulling out of the parking lot, and Sam sort of snorted and hid his mouth in his hand.

"So, you gonna answer the question or what?"

Sam glanced down at the book in his lap, face suddenly serious. "You said the thing that killed my mom and dad, and... you said it was..."

"A demon," said Dean taking pity on Sam's stuttering and to be honest, not really wanting him to rehash the whole thing. "Yeah. We don't know much about it yet."

Sam shrugged. "It's a book about them. Demons. I wanted to know."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Did Jim give that to you?" The book looked kind of old, and Dean knew just how protective Jim was of his library.

Sam shrugged. "I borrowed it. I'll give it back."

_Right_. Dean added _light fingers_ to the list of this Sam's traits that made him kind of uncomfortable. The list was getting pretty long. Maybe he should start writing this shit down.

Maybe he should just salt and burn the freakin list and pretend that this Sam wasn't any different from the real one.

"Hey," said Sam, frowning at the page in front of him, "can we stop at a book store at the next town we come to?"

Dean glanced carefully over. "You gonna buy something or rip it off?"

Sam looked up, his confused frown darkening with realisation. "I said I would give it back. God, Dean, you're not exactly entitled to the moral high ground where breaking the law's concerned."

_That's right, I never get the moral high ground because you're always freakin stomping all over it_, Dean thought, but really that was kind of unfair to this Sam, since it wasn't _him_ that Dean was thinking of. "Forget I said anything."

But when they stopped at the bookstore, Dean watched Sam the whole time, and it wasn't just because he was afraid that Sam would make a break for the nearest bar.

----

Sam bought a Latin dictionary and a grammar book, and was occupied for the rest of the day, muttering to himself and scribbling occasional notes in the margins. Dean managed to find a radio station that played the classics and turned it up loud. When Sam's hands started trembling ever so slightly at around three, Dean let him have a beer. They drove, and it was almost like home.

Dean figured it would take them twenty-four hours or so to drive to Spokane, and he was pretty happy to just go on straight through the night, because he was feeling kind of antsy about Sam's vision from the day before. Of course, when push came to shove and Sam doubled over on the forecourt of a gas station at eight-thirty, clutching his head and seeing things that weren't there, it didn't take long for Dean to decide that they needed a motel, now. The concerned glances of the other customers as he asked the clerk where he could find one didn't bother Dean, but the nagging worry at the back of his mind that helping this Sam could cost his own Sam did, and he stood for a moment, torn, before Sam lifted his face and Dean saw the pain and exhaustion there and hoped, hoped that his Sam was safe for the moment.

"What did you see?" he asked, trying to keep his voice low for the sake of Sam's head as they pulled out.

"Nothing," said Sam.

Oh, Dean was _so_ not in the mood for this. "Don't freakin lie to me, Sam. You saw something yesterday. Was it the same?"

"I don't know," Sam muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Maybe I didn't really see anything yesterday."

Dean cursed, spotting the motel the clerk had mentioned and steering towards it. "For fuck's sake, Sam. You told me you saw my brother."

"I could have been delirious," Sam said mutinously.

"Jesus!" Dean said, ramming on the brake as they hit the motel parking lot and turning to stare at Sam, all attempts at quiet forgotten. "Sam, don't freakin lie to me about this, so help me, this is my goddamn _brother_."

A muscle tightened in Sam's jaw. "Are you gonna check in, or what?"

"Fuck," growled Dean, but he got out of the car and headed for the reception, and it was only when he heard the Impala's engine turn over that he realised he'd left the keys in the ignition, and of course by then it was too late, and Dean was left standing on a motel forecourt with no car and no Sam.

And all he could think was _back to fucking square one_.

But it wasn't the same this time, because after three hours of waiting and tearing his hair out and swearing that this time, he was seriously going to kick Sam's ass, Sam appeared at the door of the room he had reluctantly booked with blood running down his face and his shirt-front ripped, stinking of smoke and with a look on his face like he was five years old. And he looked at Dean and the angry words died on Dean's lips, and he just said, _what? What is it, Sam?_

And Sam staggered into the room and collapsed on the bed with his head in his hands and said, _I came with you because I thought they would send me back. Because I thought I was going crazy_.

Dean stared. This conversation was only two lines old, and already he was beginning to feel out of his depth. "Sam..." he started, but the look Sam gave him made him stutter to a halt.

"They told me I was," Sam said, and sort of snorted. "They told me I was, and I believed them. And now I don't know who to believe."

Dean crouched down so he could look up into Sam's face. His brother's hands were clenched so hard in his lap that the knuckles were white. "Who told you, Sam?" he said carefully, still not sure what Sam was talking about, but sure it was important.

"The doctors," Sam said. "They didn't believe me."

"What didn't they believe?" Dean asked, feeling the sense of unease in his stomach start to grow.

Sam looked lost. "That I saw my father die," he whispered. "That I watched him burn on the ceiling."


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: not my characters, not my show.

Thanks and squishy thought go out to jjackles, SilberKitsune1, Liz Bach, MistyEyes, Faye Dartmouth, sugarquill4ron, carocali, barkeep, Anora, PissedOffEskimo, red121, Freyja529, sasha2002, bally2cute, Onari, PadfootObsessed 329, Stony Angel, Harrigan, Lisette and Mellaithwen for their kind words.

Lisette: I'm really glad you delurked! It was great to hear from you.

Onari: yes, detox can be fatal for alcoholics, along with causing various other dangerous symptoms. _However_ I am not a medical professional, so I make no claims for the accuracy of my attempts to portray this!

Liz: I'm glad you found the story again and are enjoying it!

OK, guys, this is now officially the longest story I've ever written. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

**----**

**But for the Grace, Chapter Eight**

Dawn was slow and freakin painful, like someone pulling the scab off a wound, and Dean wondered what the hell all those poets were yakking about with their glowing sunrises and their goddamn shiny clouds or whatever the hell, who gave a damn anyway? The point was that he, Dean Winchester, was driving the back roads of some freakin ass-end goddamn county in freakin Montana or some goddamn place and his brother was slumped in the seat next to him sleeping, or actually passed out from being so goddamn wasted that he couldn't manage to put together a freakin coherent sentence (and that might have had something to do with being terrified, too, but Dean was going to go with wasted for now), with dried blood on his face and shirt and a secret in his fucking brain that Dean needed to know, even though he was sure, _totally sure_ like Jesus himself had whispered it in his freakin ear, that he wasn't going to like it one bit.

Fuck. Yesterday he'd been on his way to Spokane with a plan and a mission and Sam had been kind of acting like a human being around him (kind of like _Sam_), and he'd been beginning to feel like maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be OK. (OK, that was dumb, because he knew that eventually he was going to have to give up on Sam, one of the Sams, and it was going to be this one, he knew it, this Sam knew it, but he didn't think about it, not ever, not _ever_.) And then the freakin vision (and he _still_ didn't know what Sam had seen, because after blurting something about being crazy and doctors and Dad burning on the ceiling – Christ, even the words made Dean's spine feel like it was trying to rip its way out of his skin – he had just kind of collapsed and nothing he'd said had made sense after that, not like _I don't understand what you're trying to tell me_, but more like _what the fuck do flying hippos have to do with this, Sammy?_, and then he'd just passed out and Dean had bundled him into the car and started driving) had fucked everything up good and proper, and Dean wished, _wished_ it hadn't happened, and at the same time all he wanted was to shake Sam until he woke up and scream _what did you see? Did you see my brother? Tell me what you saw, you goddamn son of a bitch._

It didn't help that Dean had had precisely zero hours of sleep, and everything was beginning to feel kind of hazy around the edges, like it was _him_ that was wasted (and at this point, he pretty much wished he was). But they would be in Spokane in seven hours, and Dean was clinging to that like it was the last freakin cookie in the jar, because something had to solve this, _something_, and right now Spokane was all Dean had. And that was pretty goddamn stupid too, for plenty of reasons, not least being that once he had this freakin Cell-Phone Holder Of Doom it was going to mean making his decision, and it wasn't going to do jack towards helping this Sam, and goddammit Dean _wasn't thinking about that_.

Shit. Driving was definitely not helping to calm him down.

It was an hour after dawn when Sam finally woke up (except that _came to _was closer to the truth of it), cracking his eyelids briefly before groaning and slouching down further in his seat.

"Dean," he croaked. "Where are we?"

_Who fucking cares?_ "In the car."

Sam looked for a moment like he might roll his eyes, but clearly decided that would would be a bad idea. "Where's the car, genius?"

"Goddammit, Sam," Dean growled. "Don't freakin push me."

Sam sort of shifted in his seat, opening one eye then closing it again. "What the hell crawled up your ass and died?"

It was all Dean could do not to tear his goddamn head off. "Well for one thing, you freakin stole my car and got wasted last night, remember that?"

"It's my car," muttered Sam, but he did look kind of guilty. Only kind of.

"Jesus _Christ_, Sam, I don't give a flying fuck whose car it is! I thought we went through this already!"

Sam winced, but hungover and probably semi-concussed (_a-freakin-gain_) as he was, he was nothing if not stubborn. "No, _you_ went through it. You're the one who said I wasn't drinking any more, you're the one who kept me freakin _prisoner_ at Jim's, you're the one who said I wasn't going to any more bars. I don't remember agreeing to a freakin thing."

Dean bit back his retort. "Save it, Sam," he started, but Sam cut him off, yelling now.

"No, _you_ save it. You can't just tell me this... this _thing_ is going to go away and expect it to be gone. It doesn't work that way. It's not that easy."

Dean felt like he was gripping the steering wheel so hard, he was surprised the freakin thing didn't just come off in his hands, like in some episode of Wacky Races or something. The problem was, he _did_ know. He knew that Sam wasn't just going to wake up and go _hey, I'm cured_. He knew it was a long road to recovery. He knew that he needed to stick around and help Sam through it. But he also knew that _his_ Sam, the Sam he had been protecting since he was four years old, was in trouble and needed his help. And he didn't know what the hell he was going to do about it.

For the time being, though, he was going to do what he had been doing for the last ten hours, which was head for Spokane and try not to pray, because God had fucked his life up enough already, and the last thing he needed was the fucker getting involved now.

"You never told me about your vision," he said stiffly.

Sam closed his eyes again and leaned his head against the window. "It was pretty much the same as the other ones," he said, his voice quiet and stretched around the edges. "He's in a mental hospital, alone. That's it, that's all I saw."

_That can't be all_. "How does he seem? Does he look OK?" _Yeah, Dean, because being alone in a mental hospital is all kinds of OK_.

Sam shrugged. "He looks like he's in pain," he said. "He's not screaming any more, but he's... hurting." He opened his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Not your fault," muttered Dean, noticing that his death grip on the steering wheel hadn't let up any.

"No, I mean..." Sam raised a hand briefly as if groping for something, then dropped it again, "I'm sorry for not telling you about it yesterday. I was just... kind of freaked."

"Yeah, well," Dean muttered, and didn't really know what to add. _Yeah, well, next time I'm chaining you to the goddamn car door_? Somehow, he didn't think that would go over too well. Anyway, there was something else he needed to talk to Sam about.

"So, you going to tell me what you were talking about last night?"

Sam frowned, his eyes still only really half-open. "Last night?" He seemed to think about it for a bit. "Did I try and pick a fight with you?"

Dean snorted. "Either of your arms broken?" Sam shrugged. "Then no, you didn't. But you did say you saw Dad die."

Sam's face suddenly went from groggy and frowning to completely blank and shut down. "I said what?"

Huh. Dean didn't like where this was going. He was going to have to tread really fucking carefully, and that was something Dean Winchester and his biker boots had never been too expert at. "You, uh," he tried to remember what exactly it was that Sam had said, "you said you came with me because you thought you were, uh, crazy." Shit, that sounded fucking lame. "And you saw Dad burn on the ceiling." OK, _not_ making it better.

Sam's expression didn't change. "Dude, I knew I was wasted, but I didn't realise it was _that_ bad."

Great. Denial. Just what he needed. Time to try a different tack. "Sam, when you had the first vision of Sam... of, uh, of my Sam in the nu-, in the mental hospital, you thought it was a memory. You want to tell me why?"

Sam turned his face abruptly away. "Jesus, Dean, I thought you were meant to be my brother, not my sister. Next thing I know you'll be freakin trying to _hug_ me."

Oh yeah. That shut Dean up good and proper. Irony was a freakin bitch.

It was six hours to Spokane, and Spokane was going to fix everything. It had to.

----

They checked into a motel around one, and Dean started preparing for the hunt. It was kind of weird to be planning to break into some rich guy's mansion to steal a novelty cell-phone holder rather than researching local legends and checking they had plenty of salt, but Dean figured in the end it wasn't so different. Just him and Sam against the full forces of conventional society (oh yeah, they were _so_ Butch and Sundance). Just a different Sam this time, that was all.

Turned out actually, that was quite a big deal.

"So, uh," Sam said, eyeing the gun in his hand like it was a snake, "you just... point and shoot, right?"

Dean stared. He hadn't really thought of this problem. "You gotta take the safety off first."

"Right," said Sam. He had just had a beer, but his hands were still trembling slightly. "And I do that by..." he started fiddling with the trigger.

"_Jesus_." Dean had the gun out of his hands in moments. "You know what, you can carry this." He grabbed a sheathed hunting knife and thrust it at Sam. "You know how to use one of these, right?"

Sam laughed sarcastically. "Sure. Pointy end goes in the other guy, right?"

"That's great, Zorro," Dean said. "Just make sure you remember that. And if you see any sign of trouble, you run and you yell for me, you hear?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mom."

Dean was saved from answering by the sound of Sam's cell phone. Sam grabbed for it, seeming pretty relieved to have an excuse not to have to deal with the weapons that Jim had lent them any more. It was pretty much exactly like when Sammy had been fourteen, except he was about ten feet taller now than he had been then. _Just as freakin melodramatic, though_.

"Hey, Jim," Sam said into the phone. "Yeah, we're there already. No, he hasn't. Not yet. Yeah, well, he'd better not, it's my god-, uh, goshdarn car."

Dean rolled his eyes and went back to checking his guns, letting the conversation fade into the background. He figured they would go scope out the mansion after dark, try and get some plans and info before then. Hopefully the owner wouldn't even be home. Who the hell has a mansion in _Spokane_ anyway? Must really like trees or something.

Sam finished on the phone and started putting on his coat. Dean was instantly alert, forcing himself not to go and block the door if only because he could really do with not pissing off the guy who was going to be watching his back this evening, even if that guy was totally clueless. "Where do you think you're going?" Oh, and that was a totally genius way to not piss Sam off. Dean sometimes wondered if there was some kind of tiny demon living between his brain and his mouth that purposefully fucked up everything he tried to say.

Sam didn't look pissed, though. "Jim said there was a book we could get, a new translation of some Sumerian texts. He said it might have something about the... uh, the demon, or whatever."

Dean considered this. Two bookstores in two days felt a little like overkill, but he figured he could handle that if it got him intel. Plus, he had some errands of his own to run in town.

----

They visited the bookstore first, and Dean hung around while Sam went through the shelves on the Ancient Near East, and really, it was saying something that there was more than one shelf, especially given that this wasn't the kind of dingy second-hand place that they usually frequented, but a bright, brash chain store with a display of crappy airport thrillers out front and a crew of disaffected staff out back. Come to think of it, Dean didn't think he'd _ever_ been in a bookstore like this, and it made him freakin nervous. There was something about all these colourful covers and the big comfy seats (as if anyone would choose to spend the day sitting and reading in this freaky hellhole), and the cashiers that smiled and asked if they could help and hoped you had a nice day. OK, so the people who ran the bookstores Dean usually went to tended to be short and grumpy (or mysterious, or at least trying to _look_ mysterious) and have less hair on their heads than on their chins, but at least Dean knew where he was with them. When he'd first walked in, he'd thought it was pretty damn unlikely that a place like this would have anything with information about demons, but the more people he saw picking up the latest Dan Brown with interest, the more he thought maybe he was wrong.

Finally (_finally_), Sam came out from between the shelves, carrying a shiny paperback that didn't even have the decency to have any gold writing on it. Dean stared.

"That's it?"

"Yeah," said Sam, heading towards the register.

"Huh," said Dean. He wasn't sure he'd ever been in possession of a book that looked so..._new_. He wondered what the Ancient Sumerians would have to say if they knew.

The next stop was a bit more familiar. The store stank to high heaven of incense and essential oils, and Dean thought it was going to take a trip to the smokiest bar in town to get the smell out of his clothes. Except, of course, he wasn't going to any bars. Behind him, he almost _heard_ Sam roll his eyes.

"What are we doing here, man?"

"Got to get some stuff," Dean said, grabbing a couple of bottles of the shelves. Some of the herbs they needed could be got in the grocery store, but some were a bit more obscure. Goat's fat would hopefully be available at the specialist butcher's he'd looked up on the internet. Jim had managed to provide him with a jar of bat's blood along with the guns, and Dean hadn't asked him where he got it from (because obviously, he got it from _bats_).

"Isn't it kind of," Sam looked around, then lowered his voice, "_tacky_? I mean, all this crystal stuff, and the little dragon statues?" He gestured at the offending items. "Is all this true too?"

Dean's lip curled. "Most of it's bullshit," he said. "Sometimes they get things right, mostly by dumb luck. But these places are always easier to find than the real specialists."

"Right," said Sam, looking doubtfully at a truly hideous poster of a fairy. Dean shrugged, long past noticing these things any more.

Thirty minutes later found them standing outside the local records office, Sam shifting uncomfortably and pulling at his tie. Dean was just amazed they'd managed to find a suit in the local thrift store that would fit him. _Follow my lead_, he hissed, and Sam looked unhappy, but did as he was told. Turned out, it was remarkably easy to get hold of the plans to a local structure that had required so much in the way of planning permissions, especially when you had fake ID, even if it actually claimed you were a ninja (what? OK, so, professional fakes would have been better, but in a tight spot joke shops would do, especially if you didn't flash it around too long).

After a final trip to the grocery store (_why the hell do you need so much salt, anyway?_ Sam asked, and Dean grinned and said something about dangerously low blood pressure) and to the butcher's, they were set. It was still hours before dark, and Dean figured they might as well get the preparation for the spell out of the way so they could get it done as soon as they had the Cell-Phone Holder of Doom. He pulled out the instructions that Jim had given him and set Sam to grinding up the mustard seed and angelica, while he tried to work out how to make a convincing paste out of the goat's fat and all that shit, which, ew, gross.

"What's all this for, anyway?" Sam asked, sounding like he was actually interested, the geek, and Dean shrugged.

"This is to send me there," he said, indicating what he was working on. "That's to make sure I don't come back." Pointing at Sam's concoction.

Sam looked down at it, and there was just the briefest pause before he said _oh_, and Dean remembered what he'd been doing a pretty good job of forgetting since they had pulled up to the motel, and felt like a piece of crap. He should say something. He ought to say _something_. But what could he say? _Hey, Sam, sorry I barged in here and messed up your life, but I'll be going now, take care._ Yeah, it wasn't exactly the most compassionate sentiment in the world, and OK, Dean wasn't exactly a bleeding heart humanitarian, but he was _human_, and God, he didn't want to hurt Sam.

And then there was the fact that he wasn't sure he could do it. Because it might not have been his Sam, but it was still _Sam_, and after days of just being desperate to get back to normal, Dean suddenly felt that he needed more time, more time to fix this Sam, more time to make sure he wasn't just going to go out and get himself beaten to death at the first bar he found once Dean was gone (and the problem was, Dean was pretty sure he _was_). More time to make up for a lifetime of not having been there.

"Listen, Sam..." he started, because _God_, the silence was getting on top of him, crawling under his skin and up his spine, but he didn't know what else to say after that.

Sam shrugged and ground up the herbs some more. "It's OK," he said, and his voice was flat, not even flat with anger but just totally blank. "Don't worry about it."

Dean chewed the inside of his lip. "You should have another beer," he said, feeling kind of absurd.

Sam looked up, then looked away. "Yeah, OK."

----

Full dark found them, a few miles out of Spokane and two miles from where they had hidden the Impala, concealed behind a fringe of trees opposite the mansion's fence. Dean had to say, he was impressed by the sheer _height_ of the damn thing, but luckily he had never been one to be put off by size (if he had, he'd never be able to look down in the shower). He figured Sam could manage it fine, too, given that he was fifteen feet tall. They had checked the place out, circled the perimeter, seen no lights, no sign of habitation, and Dean was beginning to think that really they were lucky enough that the owner was out of town, except he was being very careful _not _to think that because he'd just about had all the Murphy's Law he could take for one day. At any rate, it was now or never. He checked back on Sam, who was looking pale under the smudged mud that Dean had rubbed on both their faces. "Ready?"

Sam kind of swallowed. "Are you sure you want me to go?" he hissed. "I'm not exactly well-versed in this stuff."

Dean hesitated. He knew Sam was right, but he didn't want to leave him behind, and while the rational part of his mind informed him that that was because he would either have to chain Sam up or put up with him high-tailing it to the nearest bar, the more honest part pointed out that actually, he just didn't want to go it alone. "Just follow my lead," he said. "You'll be fine."

In the end, it turned out the fence was easier than it looked, because it had some ornate shit on it that turned out to provide pretty much perfect footholds (and for Christ's sake, what was the point of having a fence at all if you were just going to deck it out like a set of freakin monkey bars?). They made it over in two, quick enough that Dean was pretty damn sure no-one would have seen them even if they were looking, and slipped over to a side door. Dean grinned, feeling the adrenaline course through him. God, he hadn't felt this good for a week.

"You get the alarm, I'll do the lock," he whispered, only remembering why that wasn't going to work when he glanced back at Sam and saw him standing out in full view of the CCTV. "Shit," Dean muttered, and grabbed him, pulling him down into the shadows. "Stay there."

The alarm wasn't a total cakewalk, but it wasn't too tough, either. Dean shrugged. The good people of Spokane clearly weren't too worked up about the criminal element. That was cool with him. It made being the criminal element a whole hell of a lot easier.

The door slid open with a quiet click, and Dean grabbed Sam, dragging him after him. "Stay in the shadows," he hissed, "watch my back, and don't touch anything." Sam gave him a sarcastic salute, but pulled his knife and followed Dean as closely as he could.

Dean walked softly, visualising the plans he had memorised. Right at the door to this room... up the stairs... into the East Wing, taking the long way round to avoid the main living quarters of the house... through a ballroom where dust-sheeted shapes loomed and threw huge shadows in the moonlight pouring through massive windows, and Dean thought again that actually maybe no-one was home anyway, that the sort of people who had the cash for a pile like this probably had more than one of them.

And then they were there, in the room Dean had identified on the plans, specially constructed to hold a priceless collection of art. The walls were hung with dark paintings, and the floor crowded with sculptures and pedestals, but Dean wasn't interested in any of that Picasso crap. He moved purposefully through the room, risking turning his flashlight on now because the windows were smaller here, searching for the thing, the one thing...

_There_. Dean would know that ugly piece of crap anywhere. He crossed the floor in two strides, hearing Sam stepping softly behind him, and grinned. Damn, this was so easy.

And of course, that was where he was completely fucking wrong, and not only that, but an idiot to even think it in the first place, because, as he'd already noted once that day, irony was a bitch, and she really freakin hated Winchesters. He didn't remember that, though, till after he'd lifted the goddamn thing off its plinth and a steel door had slid shut across the entrance to the room, sealing them in.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Sam said, "Uh... Dean? Is this part of the plan?"

"Shut up," Dean muttered, over by the door in a moment, feeling around it, searching for a crack, a weak spot, a freakin _handle_ for Christ's sake. But there was nothing, and suddenly Dean felt like a freakin amateur, sneaking around with his lock-picks and his black clothes (_and his clueless brother_), only to get caught by a goddamn _door_ (and not even have the chance to slip through it at the last minute, which would at least have had the advantage of being a move straight out of Indiana Jones, and OK, Dean had always been more of a Han Solo guy himself, but Indy would do). He kicked it experimentally, and wound up with a jarred foot. Typical.

Sam was still standing where he'd left him, watching Dean as he began to search for other exits. "Little help?" Dean growled, checking out the windows (_sealed shut plexiglass and three stories up_).

"I don't believe it," Sam said. "We're stuck, aren't we?"

"No shit, Sherlock," Dean said. "Care to get off your ass and help me get us unstuck?"

"I never should have come," Sam muttered. "I can't believe I'm helping you in a freakin _robbery_. Jesus, I hardly even know you."

"Yeah, yeah, change the record," Dean said.

"I thought you said you were good at this," Sam said, and Dean wanted to kick his smug face in.

"I am, usually," he snarled. "But usually I have someone competent watching my back."

Sam went quiet at that, and Dean felt a flash of satisfaction mixed with guilt, which was totally unfair (the guilt that was, nto the satisfaction, _that_ was fully justified) because Sam had started it. He went on checking the walls of the room, the windows on the other side, then back to the door, searching for any weak spot, any way out, but they might as well have in freakin Gitmo for all the success he was having.

"Jesus Christ," he heard Sam whisper behind him. "I think this is an original Constable."

"That's great, Sam," he muttered. "Think you can use it to break a plexiglass window?"

Sam grunted. "Philistine."

"Let me guess," Dean said, sliding down to sit on the floor, "you took an art appreciation class in college."

Sam was quiet for a moment, then came and sat near him, not _next _to him exactly, but not far away. "Yeah," he said. "Did... did your Sam do that too?"

"Said it was a good way to meet girls," Dean said, and he caught the flash of Sam's teeth in the moonlight.

They sat quietly for a long while, Dean trying to figure out a way out of this mess, Sam doing whatever the hell it was Sam was doing.

"What's he like?"

Huh. Turned out what Sam had been doing was brooding. Figured. "Who?"

"The other Sam. Your Sam."

Dean shrugged, thinking about it. "He's kind of like you. But better with a .45. And less broody." _Christ, was Sam really _less_ broody than someone?_

"Huh," said Sam, but Dean knew he hadn't got off that easily, and was ready for the next question. "What about your dad?"

OK, he hadn't thought it was going to be _that_. "What about him?"

"Did he... Did he ever..."

"What? Get drunk. Yeah, he did. He _does_. Sometimes. Not too often, though."

"Right," said Sam, and Dean knew that hadn't been what he was going to ask. _Shit_.

Dean blew out his breath. "He never beat us," he said. "Never."

Dean sort of felt Sam stiffen, which was weird, because they weren't sitting right up against each other or anything, and it was too dark to see more than shadowy outlines. Maybe it was some freaky psychic crap, Sam projecting his emo-ness across the room. He hoped it wouldn't cancel out his own badassitude. Whatever it was, though, Sam was on his feet again, roaming amongst the shadowed shapes that were actually kind of spooky (not that Dean would ever admit that even to himself, because Dean Winchester did not get freaked by a bunch of mannequins made by dead art nerds), and Dean was left sitting on the floor, wondering if he'd said the wrong thing or just the right one.

It felt like forever before Sam had examined every little item in the room, sometimes exclaiming under his breath, sometimes staring at one thing for like an _hour_, which Dean just didn't get at all, because honestly, once you've seen one painting of some dead dude on a horse, you've seen them all, right? Anyway, eventually Sam flopped down on the floor again, no further from or closer to Dean than last time, and let out a breath.

"This place is phenomenal," he said.

"Great," Dean said, feeling his stomach growl. "Always wanted to starve to death surrounded by millions of dollars worth of paint and clay."

Sam leaned his head back. "We'd die of dehydration first," he pointed out. "Most people can only go three to five days without drinking."

Without drinking. Shit. Dean tried to see if Sam's hands were trembling, but it was too damn dark now he'd shut off his flashlight. When was the last time he'd had a drink? That beer back at the motel? How long ago was that?

His thoughts were interrupted by Sam's voice. "Does this happen to you a lot?"

"Uh..." Dean tried to understand the question. "Yeah, actually, I get stuck in a room with a priceless art collection pretty much every week."

Sam snorted. "Shut up, smartass. I mean, do you-- Do your jobs go wrong often?"

It was Dean's turn to snort. "All the freakin time. It's usually your fault, too." And there he was, thinking that this Sam and his Sam were the same again, that Sam had just forgotten. It was hard to keep everything straight in his head.

Sam was quiet for a minute, then he said, "Do you get scared?"

_Every minute of every day_, Dean thought, but he said, "Nah, I don't do scared."

"You're not scared now?"

Dean tried again to see if Sam's hands were trembling. "What's there to be scared of? Some statue's gonna come alive and eat us?" Why the hell did he always have to say that shit out loud, he wondered, glancing quickly round at the looming shadows, checking to make sure none of them was moving.

Sam let out a shaky laugh. "I don't know, you tell me. You're the expert."

"Jeez, Sam," Dean said. "It's not like you to be so scared of the dark."

Sam muttered something, and Dean thought it might have been _I've always been scared of the dark_, but he let it go. There were a lot of things he didn't want to be doing right now, and discussing all the things that might potentially be hiding in the shadows waiting to get them was definitely high on the list. Especially since this was a freakin perfectly ordinary mansion, for Christ's sake, that they'd broken into in order to stage an entirely non-supernatural robbery.

And this was Sam's first hunt, in a way. Kind of ironic that it would be so _normal_.

Dean decided to make another circuit of the walls, checking for hidden panels, anything that might control the doors (yeah, because if you wanted to create an impenetrable vault for your precious treasures, you would really put the controls _inside_), trying the windows yet again, running his fingers around the edge of the door, trying to find cracks, puffs of air, anything. Really, what he was doing was trying not to think too hard, because he had kidnapped Sam from his life in Palo Alto (granted, a life that was rapidly spiralling into the toilet, but still), tied him up, dragged him halfway across the country and back, almost managed to kill him, and now it looked like he was going to get him arrested. Not bad going, especially considering that he could honestly say that most of the time, he thought he'd been acting in Sam's best interests (well, and his own). When did everything he tried to do start going so wrong?

Finally, he had to give up, and dropped down to sit next to Sam, closer than they had been before. Sam was definitely trembling slightly now, and Dean clenched his jaw and didn't mention it, wondering how long they'd been stuck in this freakin place. It felt like days, but when Dean checked his watch, he saw it was only two hours.

"You OK?"

"Fine," said Sam. Dean thought he was done, but then he suddenly said, "It wasn't so bad, you know?"

OK, this was going to be another one of those conversations where Dean didn't know what the hell was going on. Well, he was getting kind of used to that now. "What wasn't?"

"Dad. Me. Us. You know..." Sam blew out a laugh that sounded almost like a moan, "my childhood, as melodramatic as that sounds."

Dean wasn't sure what to say to that. What was Sam trying to tell him? He wished he could see Sam's face, but even if it had been broad daylight, he suspected Sam would be hiding under that goddamn bird's nest of his.

And if it had been broad daylight, he was pretty sure Sam wouldn't be saying any of this to him.

"He didn't..." Sam said, and stopped, and Dean didn't know whether to urge him to go on or interrupt him and pray he never broached the subject again. "He didn't... _hit_... He didn't do it often."

Shit. That was it. Dean realised this was the first time that Sam had actually said it out loud, and it felt like a punch to the gut, even though he'd pretty much believed it for a while now. He closed his eyes, trying not to remember what Sammy had looked like at fourteen, at ten, at eight, trying not to imagine that face bruised up and his father yelling. He didn't want to talk about it. _God_, at this point he would rather chew glass. But something made him speak anyway.

"How often?" Actually, it did kind of sound like he'd been chewing glass.

Sam cleared his throat. "Uh... Maybe... a few times a year? When he'd been fired again, usually. And in November."

Dean wanted to get up, to start beating the goddamn priceless paintings against the windows, to set fire to the whole shebang, to get them _out_ of here, but instead he said, "How bad?"

Sam coughed and swallowed, and Dean thought that he had probably never told anyone this before. "Not so bad," he said. "He broke my arm once, but that was..." his voice got quieter, trailed off. "It was an accident," he finally whispered.

"Jesus." Dean leaned his head back against the wall. "I'm sorry."

Sam snorted softly. "What are you sorry about?"

_That I wasn't there to stop him. To help you. To save you both._ Dean just shrugged, and even that was pretty pointless, given how dark it was.

"I don't know why I told you that," Sam said quietly.

"I'm your brother," Dean replied.

Silence, and then Sam shifted slightly closer. "Yeah," he breathed. "I guess maybe you are."

----

The vision, when it came, didn't feel as bad as the others to Dean, maybe because Sam was already sitting down, maybe because Dean had been expecting it all day, waiting for the other shoe to drop, because it hadn't escaped his notice that Sam had had a vision each day for the last three, and coincidence was not something Dean put much stock by. And as Sam groaned and thrashed and clutched his head, Dean wondered if maybe he was going to hell for being just a little bit pleased, just a little bit glad because this was his lifeline, this was his way of finding out if his Sam was OK, or at least as OK as could be expected, at least not dead.

After it was over, Sam's shaking didn't subside too much, and Dean knew it wasn't just the aftermath of the vision, knew that if they didn't get out of that damn place pretty soon and get Sam something to straighten out his freakin brain, they were going to be in serious shit. He had read the leaflet on delirium tremens that Pastor Jim had given him three times in a gas station bathroom, fighting back his nausea because he needed to _know_. Not that knowing would help them now, stuck in the lap of luxury without even a freakin aspirin between them.

"OK, you're OK, I gotcha," Dean said, his arm round Sam's shoulders, waiting, waiting.

Sam swallowed and sighed. "Same as yesterday, pretty much," he said, like he knew exactly what Dean wanted to know but couldn't quite ask. "Still hurting. Saw the hospital from the outside, though. Red bricks. Rain."

Dean pulled him a little closer. _Sam's OK. Sam's not dead. _"That's good, everything helps."

Sam sort of collapsed against him like all his bones had suddenly melted. "You think when you see him you could ask him never to call me again?" he asked.

Dean laughed a little, because really, what the hell else was he going to do? "He's pretty good at not picking up the phone. I don't think it'll be a problem."

Sam's shaking against his ribs got a little more controlled. "God," he whispered. "How the hell did I get myself into this?"

Dean took a deep breath. "You want to tell me about when Dad died?" It wasn't fair and he knew it, but he needed to know, and so far the only times this Sam had ever confided anything in him were when he was wasted or broken or otherwise weak.

"Jesus, Dean," Sam muttered, moving as if he was going to pull away, but Dean just grabbed hold of his shoulder and didn't let him go.

"Tell me," he said quietly.

Sam pulled against him feebly. "I told you," he said shortly. "I told you last night. You said I told you."

"You said you saw him burn on the ceiling," Dean said, trying to make the words as emotionless as possible, trying to hide the tremor in his own voice. He thought about this for a minute. "And Jess?"

He felt all the fight go out of Sam. "Yeah," he said softly. "Her too."

Dean closed his eyes. "Then what?"

"My... my foster parents were good people, but they couldn't really... cope with me. They sent me to a psychiatrist. He told me I was delusional, said that if I didn't stop kidding myself they would have to send me away." Sam turned his head away, the mop of hair tickling just under Dean's chin. "I didn't stop kidding myself," he whispered, his voice shaking along with his body now.

Dean shifted, wishing there was some way that he could just _know_ this without having to hear Sam say it. "They sent you to a..." _nuthouse_ didn't sound quite like the appropriate word.

"Yeah." Oh, thank God, Sam wasn't going to make him say it. "I was there for a year. Eventually, they convinced me that I had... I had hallucinated the whole thing. They never managed to get me to remember what really happened, though. And then, with... with Jess..." the last word was said in a broken tone, and Sam's fingers curled around Dean's arm, but Dean was pretty sure Sam didn't even know he was doing it. "I'd stopped taking the pills, they made me feel so numb. And I dreamed it, _God_, Dean, I dreamed it and I thought I could handle it, could handle the dreams if only I could have a normal life, and then..." He broke off, turning his face into Dean's chest now, and Dean felt the fabric grow damp against his skin. "Afterwards... I thought it was happening again, that I was losing my mind, and I didn't want to go back there, God, I just couldn't bear it, the way the doctors would look at me, the way my _friends _would look at me. And I kept dreaming, all the time. I tried taking the pills again, but they didn't make the dreams go. And then you..."

It all clicked into place. "I came spouting off shit about demons and ghosts, and you thought you'd totally lost it."

Sam nodded, once, and sort of straightened up, pulling away from Dean. This time Dean let him go, let him put an inch of space between them.

"I thought there was no way I could go back to college, someone would find out, they'd send me back." Sam rubbed his hands over his face and cleared his throat. "So I came with you."

Dean shook his head. "You came with me because you thought you were going nuts," he said slowly. "Do you still think that?"

Sam was quiet for a minute. "Sometimes," he said.

It had been pretty much what Dean was expecting, but it hurt anyway. After everything they'd been through in the past few days, and Sam still thought that maybe he was just imagining Dean? Then again, maybe everything that had happened in the past few days was _why_ Sam still thought he was imagining Dean.

"Sometimes I think maybe I'm already back there," Sam added quietly, as if he wasn't really talking to Dean. "Maybe I'm in that freakin hospital and the visions are just the only glimpses of reality I'm getting."

Dean took a deep breath, clenching his fists and swearing to himself that if he ever met the docs who had made his little brother doubt his own sanity, whether in this reality or any other, he was going to kick their asses into the middle of next week. "Listen to me, Sam. You were never crazy, you understand? Doesn't matter what they said to you, what you saw was real. I'm real. Dad didn't freakin kill himself, and Jess sure as hell didn't die because of faulty wiring. What are you going to believe, a bunch of quacks who can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground, or your own senses?"

Sam laughed. "Dean. I'm sitting in a vault with some of the most amazing artwork ever produced, planning to steal an ancient artifact so I can use it in a magic spell, with a man who says he's my long-dead brother who I never knew I had, having visions of an alternate me in another dimension. Oh, also, apparently everyone I ever loved has been killed by the same demon, and I have psychic powers. You really think that's believable?"

Dean was speechless. When you put it like that, it _did_ sound kind of... nuts.

There wasn't time to think any more about it, though, because at that moment the door started to open.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Supernatural and the characters of Sam and Dean are not mine.

Many heartfelt thanks to art3mis, SilverKitsune1, Crystal Music, PadfootObsessed329, sasha2002, barkeep, Harrigan, Mellaithwen, Sara Wolfe, Libramentum, sugarquill4ron, carocali, fuzzylemon, MistyEyes, Kaewi, bally2cute and PissedOffEskimo for being kind enough to take the time to review. You guys rule.

Crystal Music: thanks for the concrit! The qualifiers are in there deliberately, in an attempt to give some sense of a colloquial, stream-of-consciousness style, but I definitely appreciate you letting me know what you think and will consider what you said for the purpose of future stories ;).

art3mis: It's not the first time someone has mentioned that episode of SG-1 to me in relation to this story. I adore SG-1 and have seen the ep loads of times, but it didn't even cross my mind when thinking of a title for this. I guess the SG-1 writers and myself just both had the same idea that the quotation "There but for the grace of God go I" was a good source for titles of AU stories ;).

----

"_Sometimes I think maybe I'm already back there," Sam added quietly, as if he wasn't really talking to Dean. "Maybe I'm in that freakin hospital and the visions are just the only glimpses of reality I'm getting."_

_Dean took a deep breath, clenching his fists. "Listen to me, Sam. You were never crazy, you understand? Doesn't matter what they said to you, what you saw was real. I'm real. Dad didn't freakin kill himself, and Jess sure as hell didn't die because of faulty wiring. What are you going to believe, a bunch of quacks who can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground, or your own senses?"_

_Sam laughed. "Dean. I'm sitting in a vault with some of the most amazing artwork ever produced, planning to steal an ancient artifact so I can use it in a magic spell, with a man who says he's my long-dead brother who I never knew I had, having visions of an alternate me in another dimension. Oh, also, apparently everyone I ever loved has been killed by the same demon, and I have psychic powers. You really think that's believable?"_

_Dean was speechless. When you put it like that, it did sound kind of... nuts._

_There wasn't time to think any more about it, though, because at that moment the door started to open._

**But for the Grace, Chapter Nine**

Dean was on his feet in a moment, dragging Sam up into a standing position and putting himself between his brother and the door. He put his hand on his gun where it was tucked in the back of his pants, but didn't pull it: maybe they would be able to talk their way out of this. (Also, pigs might fly. You never know.)

The sky was just beginning to lighten, and in the grey light the man who stepped through the door looked like a spook or something, except the way he moved Dean knew he was human. Pity – if it had been a ghost, Dean could have just hauled out the canister of salt he always kept in his pocket (because perfectly ordinary robbery or no, there was no sense in not taking precautions) and got rid of it long enough for he and Sam to get through the damn door. He could have tried that with this guy, of course, but tossing condiments around was pretty much not a great policy with flesh-and-blood people. Anyway, the guy spotted them almost immediately, and took a step back, holding up his hands.

"Who are you?" he asked, and Dean did his level best to think of a cover story, but really, what the hell was he going to say? _We were out hiking and we got lost in your vault. Yeah, sorry about that, won't happen again._

"We're from the security company."

Dean turned and stared. Sam had stepped out from behind him and was looking – well, _trustworthy_, despite the mud smeared on his face and the black clothing, and the shaking that the pre-dawn light could only do so much to hide.

"They hired us to see how secure your house was. We're sorry, we thought you were out of town."

The man's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and he was starting to look less shadowy now as the light grew, more like he was just lean and stately in that kind of rich white guy way, and less like he was, well, _dead_. "How secure is it?" he asked, and Dean could tell he was just trying to think of something to say to cover his surprise.

Sam shrugged self-deprecatingly and gave a half-smile. "Well, I have to admit the perimeter defences left something to be desired, but this room, well," he gave an impressed-sounding laugh, and Dean tried to remember if his Sam was this good a liar, "as you can see, it had us pretty stumped. Getting in was fine, but getting out..."

The man shook his head. "Can I see some ID?"

Sam stepped forward, smiling still, looking so goddamn _reassuring_ that Dean almost believed him himself. "Sure, but I'm afraid it's in our bags. We left them downstairs. Hey, I know it looks bad, you can call the company if you want, check us out."

They had him. They totally had him.

Except that they didn't have him at all. Because just as the man turned and looked like he was about to lead them out of the room, just as Sam stepped up to follow him, shooting a glance at Dean that Dean hoped meant _cosh him as soon as we get out_, because that was sure as hell what Dean was planning to do, the man turned back, and grinned, and that definitely didn't look like a rich white guy grin, not at all.

"Well, if it isn't Sammy Winchester," he said, and his voice had a new tone to it now, deeper, mocking. "Fancy meeting you here."

Sam froze, staring, and to be honest Dean was pretty much floored as well, which was a problem because it meant that the man had time to swing his fist with enough force to lift Sam off his feet and fling him across the room before Dean had even managed to pull his gun. And then there was the fact that a skinny guy who was at least six inches shorter than Sam and looked like the most working out he ever did was lifting the phone to order room service had just managed to send his brother bodily across the floor with one punch. Dean might not have been the greatest judge of character, but he was pretty sure that was not normal. _Ordinary robbery my ass_.

"Hey," he growled, pointing the gun now and employing his best Mr. Blond expression, the one that rarely failed to get him what he wanted. "Keep those hands where I can see them."

The guy turned to look at Dean, as if he hadn't even noticed he was there before. He smiled, but it was not the sort of smile Dean would want to run into on a dark night. Or a grey morning, for that matter.

"And who might you be?" the guy asked, sounding like he was honestly interested. Behind him, Dean heard the sounds of Sam picking himself up.

"Never mind who I am. Get away from the door. Now."

The man's eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer to Dean, not even seeming to care when the sound of the safety coming off echoed through the dusty air. "Interesting," he said staring at Dean intently. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Well, duh," said Dean, not sure what it was about this guy that made him so nervous. Well, apart from the super strength thing, of course. That was enough to make Clint freakin Eastwood a little antsy. "But we'll be leaving now and we won't bother you again. Away from the door." He gestured with the gun, in case the guy was in some way misunderstanding him.

The man stared at him for a moment longer, with that appraising look on his face, like Dean was something weird his cat had dragged in (oh yeah, look at this guy, he definitely had a cat. Probably a white one that he stroked while telling Bond his evil plan. There had been no shark pool marked on the plans for the mansion, but Dean figured that was the sort of thing you didn't bother to mention on planning applications). Then he shrugged. "Not as interesting as I thought," he said, and took a step towards Dean.

Dean pulled the trigger.

The guy stumbled as the bullet ripped into his leg, then for a moment his eyes went totally black, whites and corneas both, like someone had painted them over. Shit. Dean knew what that meant, and freaky contacts wasn't the half of it.

"Sam, get out of here," he said, backing up, knowing it was useless because the guy was between them and the door and Sam was too far away to outflank him. Still, Sam started moving on his command, but the guy moved faster, was too quick, grabbing Sam and flinging him across the room again, where he crashed against a display case and collapsed among the shards of glass. Dean fumbled in his pockets, still backing away, hoping to God he'd remembered to shove the flask of holy water in there along with the salt (always be prepared, right? Dean was a regular boy scout). For once, the big guy seemed to be on Dean's side, and his fingers closed around the flask just as his back hit the wall.

"Why don't you tell me just what you and Sammy are doing here?" the guy – the _demon_ – crooned, still advancing. "I wasn't expecting to see him quite so _soon_."

Dean growled. "You ain't gonna be seeing much of anything when I'm through with you." And he turned sharply and shot at a case in the corner of the room, shattering it. The demon's head turned, and that was all Dean needed to get the flask open and fling a spray of holy water in the thing's face.

The demon hissed and stumbled back, clawing at his skin, steam rising, but Dean didn't have time to stop and watch the goddamn floor show. He spun and raced to where Sam was lying, hoping against hope that the little geek was awake and able to walk, because there was no way in hell Dean was getting out of here with six-foot-four of unconscious Sammy over his shoulder and nothing but half a flask of holy water for protection.

Shit. Sam was out cold, sprawled among the broken glass like a gigantic rag doll. Dean reached in his pocket again to grab the salt and started pouring it in a circle around them both, but he knew there was no way he could get finished before the demon recovered, and he was right, feeling a hand grab his collar and jerk him backwards before he was even halfway done, the canister of salt flying out of his grip and catching Sam square between the eyes, which would have been funny if he'd been conscious. And if they hadn't been being attacked by a freakin _demon_. Yeah, that too.

Dean felt himself flying through the air, and he struck the back wall with so much force that he was pretty sure he felt a couple of ribs break. Damn, but this sucker was _strong_. He reached for the holy water again, but the demon was across the room in an instant, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him off the ground, holding him so that his toes just barely brushed the floor, and _squeezing_. Shit, turned out in this bizarro reality it was _Dean_ that got choked. That utterly sucked.

"Tell me what you're doing here," the demon hissed, and it didn't look like it was playing around any more. It looked pretty pissed. Well, Dean was not about to care about hurting its feelings.

"Well, you know," he said, his voice coming out slightly strangled. "I'm a connoisseur of fine art. I understand you have an original Constable--" his voice gave out on him as the demon squeezed harder, and black spots began to appear at the edges of his vision. _Damn, I always thought that was just a figure of speech_.

"You're wrong," the demon said. "You're not supposed to be here. Who _are_ you?"

Dean tried for a grin, but he was pretty sure it looked more like a rictus. "Name's Bond. James Bond."

And then, just when he thought that this was it, he was really going to choke to death—and that was fucking _ridiculous_ because that was supposed to be Sam's girly pathetic thing, Dean was supposed to die in a hail of bullets in an ambush in Bolivia, or at the very least get savaged to death by a giant hellbeast, not get fucking _strangled_ by a guy who looked like he had a special manservant to fold his underwear, not get fucking strangled at all, not least because he'd seen Sam choking often enough to know that the whole red-face-bulging-eyes thing was _not_ a good look—the demon's hand suddenly relaxed, and he turned sharply and snarled, "What are you doing?"

Dean was just about to point out that what he was _doing_ was being choked, when he became aware of a low murmuring. His feet hit the floor again, though the demon didn't let go completely, and he peered around its body to see that Sam was awake and reading something from a book. Shit, it was the book Sam had borrowed (_stolen_) from Jim.

"What, you think you can hurt me with your pathetic mumbling?" the demon asked, still not letting go of Dean's throat, but paying no attention to him now. "I could kill you without breaking a sweat."

Sam looked up, still speaking, and Dean recognised the words of the _rituale Romanum_ at the same time as he realised that the circle of salt around Sam was now complete. He felt like giving a freakin victory yell or something, because goddamn, how the hell did Sam _know_ about the salt? (And why the hell hadn't Dean told him, why had he just made some stupid joke like it wasn't important?) Victory yells were pretty much out of the question, though, because Dean's throat was sore as a porn star's ass, and in any case, they weren't out of the woods yet, not by a long chalk.

The demon laughed, and goddamn that was not pleasant. "You've been doing your homework, Sammy," it said, and Dean cast his eyes around desperately for a way to get out of its grip, cursing the fact that he'd dropped the holy water in the scuffle. "Only took you twenty-two years and your entire family going up in smoke to work out what was going on. Honestly, they tell me you're supposed to be bright. I suppose daddy must have damaged that brain of yours with all his tough love."

Sam froze, staring at the demon. Dean tried to catch his eye. _Just finish the ritual, Sam. Don't listen to the damn thing_.

The demon smirked. "Of course, it wasn't really _love_, you know that. He didn't love you. Why do you think he used to do those things to you? He wished you'd died in the fire instead of your mother. Instead of your brother."

Sam's mouth was hanging open slightly now, and Dean knew how he felt. OK, so this demon knew about the fire, even knew about Dean's alter-ego, something which no-one ought to know. Was this _the_ demon? The one they'd been searching for all this time? Because if it was, Dean thought it pretty much had the worst timing _ever_.

"Get on with it, Sam," he growled, ignoring the burn in his throat, and the demon whipped its head around and stared, its eyes boring into him as its grip tightened again.

"He won't listen to you. You're nothing to him. You're..." It stopped talking, and Dean struggled, trying to loosen its grip, but it was like goddamn iron. "You're a Winchester too," it said suddenly, and Dean felt his stomach lurch, because he was pretty sure that the more this thing knew about them, the more danger they were in. "There aren't supposed to be any more," the thing said, lifting Dean off the ground again, and Dean wondered if maybe this was the longest time anyone had ever been choked without dying. "Who _are_ you?"

Behind it, Sam had started chanting again. Dean fought for breath. "Would you believe me if I said I was selling girl scout cookies?"

The demon flung a glance at Sam. "You keep going, this one dies before he hits the ground," it snarled, and it smacked Dean's head hard enough against the wall that he actually saw stars, which at least had the upside of being kinda pretty. Sam hestitated, the hands holding the book shaking violently.

"Well now, that's not very neighbourly," Dean said, or at least he thought he said it, but it was hard to tell, hard to hear his own voice through the buzzing that had started to fill his head. He couldn't really hear if Sam was chanting or not, and he definitely couldn't see anything past the goddamn demon's stupid face, which was pretty much filling up all of his field of vision that wasn't occupied by dark spots that were now rapidly giving way to shiny colours, and actually, this wasn't so bad, apart from the panicked thoughts that were running through his mind, but even they were only a vague annoyance, distant and pretty much irrelevant. He started to feel warmth flooding through his limbs, and that was pretty nice, though there was still the irritation of his aching ribs and throat, but that was fading all the time, and he was pretty sure that in a minute or two it would be gone altogether. Yeah, that was something to look forward to, anyway.

And then suddenly things came sharply back into focus, and Dean felt first his feet hit the ground, then his entire body, which should have hurt but right now he was concentrating on the fact that his lungs were on fire, his ears were roaring like crazy, and his throat felt like he'd taken up sword-swallowing and really wasn't getting it right.

Also, there was a skinny rich guy vomiting a cloud of darkness at the ceiling, but that was never the sort of thing that Dean let bother him.

Hands were pawing at him, pulling him to sit up, and he blinked as his vision swam again and he saw Sam's worried face, those goddamn eyes of his doing that concerned puppy thing that always made Dean want to smack him (mainly because actually it made him want to hug him, and Dean was _not_ about to give in to that sort of emotional blackmail, half-choked to death or not). He could tell Sam was saying something because his lips were moving, but he was still pretty much stuck with the roaring noise that he couldn't quite place the source of. Then Sam glanced over his shoulder and said something that Dean didn't need to hear to understand, because really, _fuck_ is one of those words that pretty much anyone in the English-speaking world should be able to lip-read, and ducked out of Dean's line of vision again.

Dean was pretty sure that he ought to be doing something, but he couldn't think what the hell it was, and to be totally honest, he couldn't give a fuck right now. His ribs were burning like crazy, and the only reason he even thought about them at all was because the fact that he could actually feel them probably meant he wasn't dead, because really, right now he had bigger things to worry about, like the fact that every breath he dragged in felt like it was coated in ground glass. Son of a bitch. Being choked was fucking lame.

He didn't know how long it took him to get himself together, but he figured it wasn't so long, because Sam still hadn't reappeared. Once he noticed the ribs, he started to become aware of various other aches and pains – chief among them a thumping headache right behind his eyes, and wasn't that a bitch – and the more of them he noticed, the more he felt himself beginning to connect to the world around him again, the roaring in his ears dying down until he could hear something else, a sort of muttering, like someone had let a crazy hobo in or something, and for just a moment Dean was still fucked up enough to glance round to check out where the hobo was and whether he was maybe possessed too, before he realised it was coming from Sam. Sam who was sitting in a spreading pool of blood.

Shit. Dean hauled himself to his feet and staggered the two steps to his brother, almost blacking out as his ribs ground against each other. "Sam," he gasped, and talking felt _so_ much worse than breathing, _so_ much freakin worse. And Sam looked up at him, his face bloodless and terrified, and Dean thought suddenly that somehow Sam was dying.

A second later he realised that that was definitely not what was going on. Because if anything could explain the pool of blood, Dean was pretty sure it was the skinny rich guy lying on the floor with a freakin hole in the side of his head.

"I killed him, Dean," Sam said, and he didn't sound scared, just kind of blank. "I didn't know it would kill him."

Dean dropped to his haunches next to the body, wincing again at the pain in his ribs. "That's a bullet hole," he said, then coughed, and that was possibly the worst freakin idea he'd ever had. Jesus goddamn fucking _ow_.

Sam was staring at him. "So?"

"You shoot him?" Dean asked, wishing his voice didn't sound so fucking broken.

Sam shook his head slowly.

"Then you didn't kill him."

Sam seemed to be settling in to think about this for a while, but there was no time for that. They had to get the hell out of here, before someone called the cops – if they hadn't already. Dean had no fucking idea what was going on with the dead guy who had been possessed one minute and then dead of a gunshot wound the next without a single shot being fired, but it wasn't the weirdest thing he had seen in his life by a seriously long chalk, and right now he really didn't give a shit about anything except getting his brother and himself and the Freakin Bastard Cell-Phone Holder of Goddamn Doom the hell out of there. He grabbed Sam's arm and hauled, hissing because his goddamn ribs really weren't shutting up any time soon, and Sam stumbled to his feet and seemed to come back to reality, grabbing hold of Dean's shoulder.

"Shit," he said. "You OK, Dean? You hurt?"

"Just a scratch," Dean said, trying for a grin, but his voice sounded like shit and he had to grit his teeth, and that was plenty enough reason for Sam to go all mother hen, even this Sam.

"Fuck," he said, and put his arm round Dean's back, and together they started towards the door, Dean just for a moment thinking about going back for the holy water flask, but figuring there wasn't much point because his fingerprints were pretty damn unlikely to be on any police database, at least in this reality. Ha. Dean Winchester had had a clean slate for all of a week before managing to find himself at the scene of what looked to all intents and purposes like a murder. Yeah, he was pretty goddamn hardcore.

The path back through the mansion was about a million times longer than it had been on the way there. Jesus, the place was so freakin _big_, you could've parked a goddamn fleet of space shuttles in it and still had room to spare. Who the hell needed so much space? Except for apparently a skinny guy with a bad case of possession. Maybe the demon was claustrophobic. Anyway, the trip wasn't being helped any by the fact that Dean was having trouble thinking straight enough to remember the route back, and now that the adrenaline rush had worn off, Sam was beginning to shake again. There seemed to be no sign of any other inhabitants in the house, though, which was pretty lucky, if you considered running into an honest-to-Beelzebub demon when you were just trying to innocently take off with a priceless art treasure _lucky_.

They made it out the front door and stumbled into the burgeoning sunlight. Dean had figured there was no way they were making it back over the fence, so their only hope was to find the controls for the front gate and crack them or disable them, which was easier said than done since it was hard enough putting one foot in front of the other, let alone doing the whole MacGyver bit. They were lucky again, though (and Dean was beginning to think it was seriously just a big cosmic joke that all their luck would come _now_ when they really could have used it a few hours ago, Jesus, someone up there had a lame sense of humour) because it turned out the controls were pretty easy to operate from the inside. Seemed like no-one was worried about anyone breaking _out_ of here. _Not like the goddamn vault._

And then they were staggering along the road towards where they'd left the Impala, and it was pretty much a nightmare, because it was a remote road but they were walking along it in daylight, which had not been part of the plan _at all_, and they looked like utter crap, not to mention their bloodstained clothes, which meant that if anyone came along they were going to be interested and they were going to remember, and Dean did not exactly want his face (or worse, Sam's) to be part of a Kodak moment less than a mile away from a dead rich guy. _So, Sam, what's your ambition in life? Well, I always wanted to drop out of college and spend the best years of my life in jail, actually. Lucky I have a big brother to take care of that for me._

Keeping to the trees seemed like the best option, even though it made the going slower, but after what seemed like for-fucking-ever but couldn't have been more than a mile, Sam suddenly let go of Dean and fell back against a trunk, his eyes staring, and Dean stumbled and caught himself and then allowed himself to slide to the ground.

"Jesus," said Sam. "Jesus, Dean."

Dean lay back on the grass and stared up at the sky through the leaves. It was bright blue, and the sunlight dappled his face, and the whole thing was ridiculously goddamn cheerful considering the mess they were in. "We just gotta keep going," he rasped. "It's only another mile."

Sam sank down to sit next to him. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't."

Dean closed his eyes. "No," he muttered, "I can't either."

"Let's just rest... just for a minute," Sam said. He put his head in his hands. "What _was_ that thing?"

Dean turned his head to look at Sam, and observed that he was shaking pretty bad now. The beer was in the trunk of the Impala. They needed to get there, but all sense of urgency seemed distant and somehow not really relevant. "You're the one who knew how to exorcise it," he said.

Sam gave a shaky laugh. "So it _was_ a demon. I didn't... I wasn't sure." He looked up at Dean from under his bangs, his eyes unfocussed. "You're sure I didn't kill him?"

Dean blinked and nodded slowly. "Wasn't you."

"Fuck," Sam said. "The things it said..."

Dean tried to make his lips form the words _demons lie_, but the little bitches wouldn't do it. He felt himself drifting away, and he thought probably he should fight it, but he couldn't quite remember why. He was always having to remember stuff, to do stuff like... like something... there was something he was supposed to do...

Then he was coming back to awareness with a snap as somebody shook him. "Dean! Don't you fucking pass out on me!"

Dean blinked a couple of times. "Son of a bitch, Sam," he croaked. "Give a guy a break over here, would ya?"

"God, you need to get to a h... to a hospital," Sam said. "Shit. Shit. I'll... I'll call an ambulance." He pulled out his cell, but his hands were shaking so hard that he dropped it in the grass. "Fuck," he said, and then suddenly he looked straight at Dean, and the expression on his face made Dean feel about as cold as that time that Reverend Lansdale had walked in on him and the reverend's sixteen-year-old daughter. "Fuck, Dean," Sam said, and that was all the warning Dean got before Sam went stiff and started to convulse.

That was pretty much when Dean remembered what it was he was supposed to be doing. And doing a damn fine job of it he was too. "Shit, Sammy," he groaned, managing to get to his knees and trying to move Sam so that he wasn't going to hit any of the trees. _Not this shit again._

Sam's jerking stopped almost as soon as it started, which was just another item on the list of things that were lucky while also being utterly fucked-up. "You OK?" Dean asked.

Sam blinked a couple of times, and Dean saw that most of the terror had gone from his face, to be replaced by a hard expression that was unpleasantly familiar. He choked out a laugh. "Something worth dying for, right Dean?"

"Hey!" Dean said. "Nobody's dying here, you got me?" But honestly, the sentiment was pretty fucking weak, given that Sam looked about as good as Dean felt, and Dean felt like freakin death warmed over, and not the romantic kind of death either, the shitty kind where you got knifed for twenty bucks in a back alley and ended up face down in the mud.

Seemed like Sam pretty much felt the same way. "Whatever," he said. "You know, I..." He broke off, and Dean saw that look again.

"Fuck, Sam, don't you do that again," he said, but it was too late, because Sam's muscles were already spasming, and it was worse this time, way worse, Sam's eyes rolling crazily in his head, and going on for too long, too long. Dean could feel reality begin to rush away like it had back at Jim's, only worse because his head was pounding and he hadn't slept for two days and his ribs fucking _hurt_, everything hurt, but that didn't matter, because Sam was going to die, and what the hell was he going to do about it?

He looked up desperately, looked to try and see if he could see the Impala, even though he knew it was a mile away if not more, or then maybe there would be someone driving past, he could flag them down (stumbling out of the trees with bloodstained clothes on a remote road was pretty much guaranteed to get drivers to stop for you, right?), but there was no-one, nothing but the birds fucking _tweeting_ in the goddamn trees like this was some freakin Disney movie or something, and Sam was still seizing.

He turned back to his brother, but he caught the glimpse of something in the grass. Sam's cell. Thank fucking God 911 was an easy number, because Dean's hands weren't very much steadier than Sam's. He heard the operator speaking to him in a quiet voice, reassuring him that the ambulance was on the way, that he should stay on the line, even though he didn't remember telling her where they were or actually even speaking at all. It didn't matter really, though, because his hands made the decision for him, dropping the phone on the ground as Sam finally (_finally_) went still, which Dean was insanely grateful for for about two seconds before he realised that Sam was _too_ still, his body not even trembling now, and he hauled himself forward, ignoring the blackening of the edges of his vision, just to make sure, just to make sure that Sam was still breathing.

Except Sam wasn't. And wasn't that just a kick in the head?

Dean's brain was broken. He looked down at his brother lying stretched out in a clearing in the middle of fucking nowhere, somewhere near _Spokane_ for God's sake, limbs still twisted grotesquely, hair sticking to his forehead with sweat and mud and blood, and not breathing, not _breathing_, and he knew that he was fucked, because his brain just _wasn't working_.

Turned out, though, he didn't actually need his brain too much (which Sam would totally have a field day with if he knew), because his body remembered, his body knew what he was supposed to do, tilt the head back, open the airway, hold the nose shut and breath in, hands over the chest, _one, two, three_.

Dean watched his hands and remembered practicing this on Sam in a back field somewhere in Iowa, their dad watching, giving instructions, Sam complaining that he was hurting his chest, _you're doing it too hard, Dean, it's only supposed to be pretend_, his face still childlike even though that was the summer that he had started to go from playing with toys to slamming doors and hiding his feelings, looking up at Dean from underneath his lashes with that pissed-off expression of his that always made Dean feel like he was a six-year-old being scolded for stealing candy.

_Give me that look now, Sam. I can take it._

But Sam ignored him, just like always, and his face remained blank and empty of anything, his mouth slack as Dean bent over to breathe into it again, his body shifting slightly when Dean pumped his chest, but not in a kind of _hey I'm alive_ way, more like a fish flopping on a market stall, and OK, hey, not carrying on that line of thought any longer.

_Hands on the chest. One, two, three_.

Dean was vaguely aware that his ribs were sending sharp pains through him every time he leaned over to breathe into Sam's mouth, but as far as he was concerned, they could fuck right the hell off. Ribs were important, but he was pretty sure breathing was more important. In fact, he could remember that when the demon had been choking him the whole broken ribs thing hadn't figured very high at all on his list of priorities, and right now they were about as urgent as renewing his subscription to _Hustler_ (which was pretty pointless, since they were pretty unlikely to be able to send it out to him in another dimension, right?). He was also aware that he didn't know how much time had passed since Sam had stopped breathing, but he still wasn't doing it, and he remembered Dad's voice, lecturing, in that _Dean-listen-this-is-important_ tone – _it doesn't revive them, it just keeps the blood pumping until they can get medical help._

Where the fuck was the medical help?

And then, of course, they weren't on the road, they were in the trees, the ambulance wouldn't be able to see them, because they were hiding, they were freakin _hiding_, and Dean panicked and ripped off his boot with one hand, continuing to pump Sam's chest with the other _one, two, three_ and flinging the boot out onto the road, which was _utterly freakin lame_ but what the fuck was he supposed to do?

He didn't realise that time was moving in jolts again until he felt hands on his shoulders pulling him away from Sam, even though he'd never heard the sirens. He tried to fight, but his ribs screamed at him, and then he saw that someone else had taken over the CPR and worked out what was going on.

"Sir, can you tell me what happened?" someone asked him, shining a light in his eyes.

_A demon kicked our asses. Which I guess was fair enough, since we were trying to burgle his house and shit._

"Uh," he grunted, trying to see past the light, see what was happening to Sam. "Got in a fight. Sam's... Sam's got..." he tried desperately to remember the stupid name, he'd read it off the leaflet enough times "delirium... something."

"Delirium tremens?" the voice asked, and Dean nodded. He heard the voice shouting something, and then the light went away, and he saw a woman leaning over Sam, holding his mouth open with some kind of... some kind of stupid doctor thing or whatever, Dean was fucked if he could work out what it looked like, and she was peering into Sam's mouth, and Sam, God, Sam looked dead, with his head tilted back and this woman poking around in his mouth like he was just a _thing_, not a person at all (and maybe, said a voice at the back of Dean's head, maybe he was by now, just a thing, nothing in there, no more Sam). Dean had the weird thought that it ought to be dark, it was always dark when these things happened, right? He'd been mauled more than once in his life, and it was always freakin _dark_, but the sun was shining down like it was the fourth of freakin July, making patterns on Sam's still face, and that just wasn't right.

Then the woman was holding a tube, pushing it into Sam's mouth, and Dean at once clenched his fists in irrational rage and felt a horrible relief because if they were doing that then Sam must not be dead yet. He felt a stabbing pain in his side, and turned to see a guy pressing on his skin.

"Hey, watch what you're freakin doing," he said, and the man looked up and said _does that hurt?_

"Yeah it freakin hurts, my ribs are broken, genius," Dean said, wishing his voice didn't still sound like someone had rubbed his throat with sandpaper (and also that his throat didn't still _feel_ like it had been rubbed with sandpaper, because it hurt like a _bitch_). He was pretty sure he was going to pass out soon, but he stood as they lifted Sam up on a stretcher and carried him towards the ambulance, the woman now squeezing a plastic pouch attached to the tube that was down Sam's throat.

"I'm going with him."

The guy with the wandering hands looked at him in consternation. "We've called another ambulance for you. Sir, you need to sit down."

Dean shook his head vehemently and tried very hard to look like he wasn't about to keel over. "I'll sit down in there."

No-one got in Dean Winchester's way when he wanted something bad enough. And that was how he found himself sitting in the back of the ambulance, with the sirens screaming and making his head pound even more, watching as a stranger with a freakin plastic bottle breathed for his brother, holding his life in her hands.

And all he could think was _Jesus. I really screwed up this time._


	10. Chapter 10

Supernatural and its characters are not mine.

Many thanks to Tyranusfan, Nana56, barkeep, Lisette, PissedOffEskimo, sasha2002, Faye Dartmouth, Annibal, carocali, Liz Bach, sugarquill4ron, SilverKitsune1, MistyEyes, bally2cute, Sara Wolfe, Onari, mtee1958, Harrigan and PadfootObsessed329 for their kind reviews! You guys are great.

Lisette: if my Dean seems more colourful than the real Dean, I like to think that's because we don't get to hear the real Dean's thought processes! I guess the episodes would be much longer if we did... (just like this fic is turning out to be...)

barkeep: thanks for the crit! It's much appreciated :).

Sorry for the delay in this chapter, guys. Looks like my muse decided it would be fun to play somewhere else for a week or so...

**----**

**But for the Grace, Chapter Ten**

Dean jolted awake with a start. He felt like crap.

No, wait, he _didn't_ feel like crap. That was weird. He was pretty sure he was supposed to feel like crap.

...why?

Something... something had happened and... he couldn't quite grasp the thought. He could almost see it, shiny and sort of purple for some reason, slithering away into the dark recesses of his mind as he tried for a tackle and ended up with a faceful of random memories.

...OK, he was obviously high. That was the only explanation. Maybe around now would be a good time to open his eyes.

Hm. White. Lots of white. Either he was in a snowstorm or a hospital, or maybe outside the universe, because when Dean was ten a teacher had explained the concept of the universe to him and he had been very worried about what might be outside it, until he figured that if the universe was endless black, then outside it would be white... wait.

Hospital.

Actually, that sounded like a more likely explanation than either snowstorm (not cold) or outside the universe (faster-than-light travel apparently not invented yet, and what the hell was taking those geeks at NASA so long anyway?). Especially given that his view was now starting to resolve itself into white walls, a white bed, and a woman in a white outfit (a nurse! God bless us, every one) staring at some chart.

Dean was in the bed. He was in bed, and there was a nurse.

Hey, wasn't Heaven supposed to be all white too?

OK, so if he was in Heaven (and _God_, that nurse's legs went all the way up, how could he not be?) then he must have died. That was why he didn't feel like crap, presumably. Probably you weren't supposed to feel like crap in Heaven. But what had he died of? And why did he feel like he _ought_ to feel like crap? (Aside from the fact that actually, he spent a large proportion of his life feeling like crap for one reason or other.) He wondered if the nurse (_angel_) knew, and cleared his throat to ask her, only to find it felt oddly scratchy, not painful, but thick and hard work. The nurse looked up and smiled, but Dean wasn't paying attention any more, because the odd feeling in his throat brought back a flood of memories, of black eyes and a vice around his neck, of staggering through trees and burning ribs and _Sam oh God Sam_.

"Where's Sam?"

"Is that the young man you came in with?" the nurse asked, and when Dean nodded she said, "I'll go and find Doctor Hughes."

Then she was gone, and Dean didn't even enjoy the view of her backside swaying out of the room, because the last thing he remembered was arriving at the hospital and seeing his brother's unmoving body being pounced on by a swarm of doctor types before everything had gone black. Great, he had totally passed out in the ER. That was lame.

A short guy in a white coat appeared in the doorway and smiled warmly at Dean. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Marshall."

_Marshall_. Dean could vaguely remember one of the paramedics asking him his name. He had been completely fucking out of it. Looked like lying was another one of those things his body could manage without any input from his brain.

"Where's Sam? Is he OK?"

"Your friend's stable," the doctor said, examining Dean's chart. "He's sleeping now. Barring complications, we'll take him off the ventilator when he wakes up."

_Ventilator_. Shit. "I want to see him," Dean said, starting to sit up. His head felt like it might float away any time now, and Dean definitely did not want that to happen, because he didn't know how his body would see to catch up with it.

"Calm down," the doctor said with a gentle hand on his shoulder pushing him back down. "You need to rest."

"I need to see Sam," Dean insisted.

"He's not going anywhere. And neither are you. You have two cracked ribs and a concussion, not to mention serious bruising of your throat."

"I'm fine," muttered Dean, subsiding into the bed as a wave of light-headedness washed over him. Christ, whatever these doctors had pumped into him, it was good shit.

"You will be," the doc said, "with time and rest. You'll be pretty sore for a while, though. I've prescribed you painkillers to help with the worst of that, and we'll keep you in overnight for observation. After that, you'll be free to visit your friend, but I want you to take it easy until those ribs have had a chance to heal, OK?"

Dean grunted. He had had to deal with enough doctors in his time to have worked out by now that this was one of the ones that he should just agree with until he went away. Then he could sneak out to find Sam. The doctor seemed to take his response as a sign of submission, and leaned over to check out the bag of clear fluid that was attached to the back of Dean's hand via a long length of tube.

"So," he said, sounding casual, which made Dean's spine stiffen, "care to tell me what exactly happened?"

Oh, so it was that time already, was it? Dean had a stab at thinking fast, but right now the inside of his head felt kind of like the moon, you know, with zero gravity and thoughts kind of bouncing about all over the goddamn place. _OK, Dean, get a grip. You were in the woods, so..._ "We were out hunting," he said, pleased to have made it as far as an actual coherent sentence, "and this... guy... jumped us."

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "A guy jumped you in the woods?"

Dean thought about woods. Usually they were full of... deer and bunnies and shit, not demons. No, wait, he hadn't said it was a demon, he'd said it was a _guy_. Yeah, well, why shouldn't there be a guy in the woods? There was no law against it. OK, so Dean didn't actually _know_ there was no law against it, but you'd have to be an idiot to come up with a dumb law like that. "Yeah."

The doctor crossed to a cabinet and pulled out a clear plastic bag. Inside was Dean's gun. "This isn't exactly a hunting rifle."

_Depends what you're hunting_, thought Dean, but he said, "That's not mine. It was his."

"His?"

"The guy. The crazy guy in the woods. He tried to shoot us."

"Oh?" the doctor asked, still all casual like he was freakin asking about the weather or something. "How did you get away?"

Dean concentrated hard. He had to get his story to fit the facts, which were his injuries, the gun, the location. OK. Deep breaths. Stupid freakin painkillers. "He, uh, he was crazy. He was like, you know, like those guys you see on the street, kept going on about the end of days or some crap like that." That was good, details were good. Made it believable. "He pointed the gun at Sam and I wrestled it off him. Got pretty beat up doing it. Then Sam and me, we just ran."

"You didn't shoot him?"

Dean shook his head emphatically, then stopped because seriously, it actually really _definitely_ was going to come off any time now. "Nah, man. I've never even used one of those things." He noticed the doctor was looking at him skeptically, and tried to work out why. Why would the doc assume he'd shot a guy that he'd just freakin made up?

Oh, right, the fact that his clothes looked like he'd been kicking back in a slaughterhouse might have something to do with it. _Way to remember the important details, Dean._

"He was bleeding though," Dean said. "When he jumped us. It looked like he'd already gone a few rounds with someone else. He was covered in that shit. Total freakin horror show." He glanced up from under his lashes to see if the doc was buying it. He still looked kind of suspicious, but he put the gun down and squared his shoulders, and Dean thought that if nothing else, he'd bought them some time.

"I've got to say, I'm surprised your friend was happy to wander around in the woods, given his condition."

"Condition," Dean said slowly.

"Alcoholism," the doctor said bluntly. "I've never seen an alcoholic willingly separate himself from ethanol for long enough to cause seizures. Must have been some hunting trip."

_You don't know the half of it._ "Yeah, that. We, uh, we had some booze back at the cabin, but we got pretty turned around after we ran into the crazy dude. Lucky we managed to find the road when we did, really."

"So he's not being treated for his alcoholism?"

Dean felt his lips twist in a bitter smile. "He's... what's the word? _Self-medicating_."

The doctor nodded and sighed, and he looked like he'd seen a hundred of these cases and could remember the first name of every single one. Yup, he was the bleeding-heart type, all right. Probably the best kind of doc you could have, if your main aim was getting good treatment rather than getting the hell out of the hospital before anyone noticed your insurance was faked. And he was very obviously concerned about Sam.

"Listen," he said, leaning forward slightly, like he was a freakin teenage girl about to spill the goods on his crush or something. "I really don't want to see that young man leave the hospital without getting him into a programme. I know it's difficult, but... I can keep him here for a couple of days, find some excuse not to discharge him, if you'll try and persuade him for me."

Dean pulled back a little. Wow, this guy totally had the wrong idea about where Dean stood on this issue. "I dunno, doc, if he doesn't want to..." he started, but the doctor cut him off.

"Mr. Marshall, alcoholism is a very serious condition. Your friend could very well die, and even if he doesn't, his quality of life will be seriously affected. Do you want that on your conscience?"

Dean was pretty much floored. Bleeding heart or no, this guy knew how to pull out the big guns, and Dean realised he kind of reminded him of Sam, _his_ Sam. Yeah, the easiest way to get the hell out of this mess was definitely going to be to agree to whatever this crazy care-bear Stalin wanted, and then sneak off when he was looking the other way (which, when he came to think about it, was pretty much how he dealt with Sam too). He cleared his throat. "Yeah, I'll talk to him."

The doctor straightened up, looking satisfied. "Thank you. OK, I'll be back to check on you in a few hours."

Dean watched him go. A few hours. That was plenty of time to find Sam.

----

Hospitals really needed to get a new colour scheme, Dean decided as he made his way along yet another echoing corridor. In fact, they could do with doing a whole image consultancy thing. Puke green combined with too much white was making his head hurt. It was like being stuck inside a can of pea soup and sour cream, and actually, pea soup and sour cream sounded disgusting enough that Dean had to stop for a moment to pull himself together. Or maybe that was just the painkillers wearing off.

Freakin hospital was too freakin big, as well. He'd manage to score some scrubs from a biowaste bin (OK, so rooting through containers that had _Potential Biohazard_ on the side in ominous letters wasn't necessarily the smartest way to go about things, but Dean's brain wasn't exactly working at optimum capacity or whatever right now), but he was still too wary of being caught to just ask where his brother was. Didn't help that he couldn't remember what name he'd checked him in under.

So, ICU, right? Because Sam was on a ventilator (_ventilator_), and that sounded like the sort of thing that would happen in an ICU. Goddamn hospital maps were completely freakin useless, and Dean had been back along this corridor three times already (or at least, a corridor which looked exactly like this one, though that wasn't saying much, because in Dean's experience hospital décor was not exactly overflowing with originality), and he was beginning to worry that he wasn't going to find Sam at all when he peered into a room and saw a familiar mop of hair. Yahtzee.

And then there was the thing: Sam was on a _ventilator_, and if Dean had been freaked out by hearing about that, he was ready to put his fist through a wall now that he could actually see it. It was hideous, was what it was, like a freaking accordion pumping air into Sam's lungs, and it had really got to that point, where Sam couldn't even _breathe_ for himself, and of all the things Dean could do for him that was not one of them. The goddamn machine had taken his job, and left him with nothing but guilt.

"Sam," he muttered, coming closer to the bed. Sam looked worse than he had back in the woods, eyelids looking bluish, mouth slightly open, the tube of the ventilator pulling down on his lower lip._ Son of a bitch._

Dean cleared his throat. "Just so you know, we're not going to have a touching bedside scene, here," he said. "And I'm totally gonna kick your ass when you wake up, OK? But I pretty much need you to do that now, because I think the doc might have called the police." He waited. Sam ignored him. The ventilator hissed. It was all pretty much par for the course.

"OK, well," Dean shrugged. "I guess we gotta do this the hard way." He grabbed Sam by the shoulders and shook him, hard. He'd seen enough daytime hospital soaps to know that wasn't what you were supposed to do with comatose patients (but what you _were_ supposed to do was cry and tell them how much you loved them and how sorry you were for accidentally sleeping with their evil twin or stealing their freakin goat or whatever, damn, those shows were all the same, and _that_ was definitely not going on Dean's agenda for the afternoon), but he figured this was an emergency situation. If the cops found the guy in the mansion, or even just wanted to take their fingerprints for having an unlicensed gun, Sam might as well kiss his law school career goodbye. Dean figured this Sam's life was fucked-up enough already as it was, without narrowing his options even further (not to mention the possibility of jail time, and no matter how much of a hardass this Sam might be, Dean was not about to see him in leg-irons). So, shaking it had to be.

At first Sam just flopped about like he was on drugs or something (and Dean eyed the IV bags and figured that actually he was, lots and lots of drugs), but after a moment or two his eyelids fluttered, and seconds later he came to. Of course, Dean hadn't bothered to think about the fact that he had a freakin tube shoved down his throat (well, aside from the requisite ER-style moment of horror when he walked in, of course), so when Sam started flailing and choking and all kinds of alarms went off, he decided it was time to beat a strategic retreat before someone realised that, scrubs or no scrubs, he wasn't exactly acting like a health-care professional.

He made it out of the door and round the corner moments before the first flurry of activity reached Sam's room. He was too far away to hear what was going on, but he hoped the doc had been serious when he said he would take Sam off the ventilator when he woke up, because OK, Dean could do CPR and stitch gashes and knew the difference between a head injury that rated a hospital visit and one that was probably fixable with a couple of pills and something to throw up into, but he wasn't about to go fucking around with the machine that was helping his brother breathe. And if Sam didn't come off the thing, they couldn't get the hell out of Dodge, and that could cause a few problems, which, given that almost everything that Dean could possibly think of had already gone wrong that week, might be a few too freakin many.

After a while, he heard the sound of people talking quietly while moving away, and moved back to the room. It was empty except for Sam, who was lying on the bed with his eyes closed, looking like the freakin Crow or something but mercifully ventilator-free. Dean wondered how long he'd been gone from his room, and moved to check Sam's chart. After squinting for a while to read the doc's handwriting (seriously, the guy should get together with whatever idiot wrote that book Dean had been trying to read back at Jim's and run a workshop on writing with your feet or something), he made a mental note of the drugs Sam had been prescribed, especially the ones next to the comment _for alcohol detox_, and moved over to the bed.

"Hey, Sammy," he said, touching his brother's shoulder. "Time to get up now. School starts in half an hour."

It was a joke he'd used a few times on Sam since the two of them had gone back on the road, and it never failed to get him a sleepy scowl and a swat on the arm. Of course, this Sam had never been woken like that by Dean, even when he really had been at school. Still, Dean's head still felt like it was full of cotton wool, and he wasn't exactly on full scintillating form.

Sam opened one eye. "What the fuck, Dean?" His voice was raw and whispery, but the anger was unmistakable. Huh. Looked like Sam didn't need the background info to be pissed off by that joke, then.

"Not exactly the reunion I was hoping for, but beggars can't be choosers, right?"

Sam shifted and sat up. "Why am I here?" he asked, and this time Dean caught both the slurring and the fear beneath the anger. Hospital. Sam was scared of hospitals.

"Couldn't help it, Sam. You stopped breathing. But we're out of here right now, OK? Think you can walk?"

Sam blinked a couple of times then swung his legs over the side of the bed, movements sluggish. "Head feels... weird," he said.

_Yeah, I know what that feels like._ Dean glanced around the room, spotted a closet and crossed to it. Sam's clothes lay packaged in plastic inside, stiff with reddish-brown blood. He shoved them in the bag with his own stuff (the doc had swiped the goddamn gun, though, and God knew where he was gonna get the money to spring for a replacement, although actually, since it was Jim's gun, maybe God really_ did_ know) and pulled out the spare set of scrubs he had brought. Potential biohazard was right. They freakin stank. Still, at least they didn't look like they'd just been extras in _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_. "Put these on," he said, tossing them over to Sam, who was still perched on the edge of the bed. "Follow my lead."

Sam struggled into the blue drawstring pants OK, but had a little trouble when it came to putting on the shirt. Dean, standing watch by the door, glanced over to see him growl in frustration and dump the offending item on the bed. "Dean, 'm tied to the bed," he said.

It was the IV that was causing the trouble. Sam tugged at them and then winced, and Dean thought that his brother was more out of it than he'd realised (which, considering he'd just woken Sam up from a drug-induced unconscious state brought on by a near-death experience, was actually no freakin surprise). Dean crossed the room quickly, extracting the IV from the back of Sam's hand as gently as he could given the clumsiness of his fingers (and next time he wound up in the sick-house, he was _so_ not letting them give him whatever they'd given him this time. Unless he had, like, a week to spare and some good buddies to share it with), and then handing him the shirt again. "Let's do this thing, little man," he said.

Sam shrugged the shirt on, then slipped off the bed, wobbling until Dean caught his arm. He itched to put his arm around his brother and support him, the way he always did when Sam was hurting (in a manly way, of course), but they weren't exactly going to look like a couple of doctors if they were leaning on each other like a couple of old grandmas (wounded war heroes, dammit), since the whole doctors getting beat up by patients thing probably didn't happen too often outside _General Hospital_ (not that Dean ever watched that show, obviously). "You gonna be OK to walk?" Dean asked, and Sam took a step and nodded. It would be OK. All they had to do was get to the parking lot.

Of course, as soon as they exited the room and turned towards the main bank of elevators, Dean saw a couple of cops talking to a nurse at the end of the corridor. Shit. That as just absolutely freakin _typical_. OK, Dean had wandered up and down this goddamn hospital fifteen times already, he ought to be able to work out an alternate route without too much hassle. Of course, there was the issue that his head _still_ freakin felt like it was going to come off at the slightest provocation, which made creating a map of the hospital in his mind's eye a little more tricky than it might otherwise have been, not to mention the fact that every goddamn corridor looked exactly the same (seriously, it was like one of those behind-the-scenes shows Dean had seen once where they had only one set and they just kept changing the furniture, only Dean was pretty sure he would have noticed if there had been hordes of techies running around with bedpans and gurneys and unconscious people or whatever every time he turned his back – he may have been drugged up, but he wasn't completely oblivious). OK, well, the cops were on the right, so that at least made the decision a little easier.

"Left," he hissed to Sam, who clearly hadn't got the memo about avoiding the long arm of the law. He hurried Sam down the corridor with a hand on his arm, only breathing easier when they'd turned the corner and were out of the cops' line of view. He glanced sideways at Sam to see him looking pale and tense.

"Hey, you OK?"

Sam nodded without looking at him. He was sweating slightly, and a muscle twitched in his jaw.

"You sure? You look like crap."

"I'm _fine_, Dean, would you just drop it?" Sam snapped under his breath, and Dean took in the way his hands were clenched and decided that this wasn't a sign of an oncoming seizure (thank fucking God), it was something else, it was that thing, the thing he'd thought earlier (Jesus _Christ_, when was this fucking drug going to get the hell out of his system?), oh yeah, Sam was scared of hospitals. Well, there was pretty much nothing Dean could do about that except try and get them out of there as fast as may be, so he kept his hand on Sam's elbow and steered him towards what he thought might have been the most serendipitous service elevator he'd ever seen. Not that that was what Dean called it in his head, of course. And if he did, it was the drugs talking. Seriously, serendipitous? What did that even _mean_?

They made it out of the hospital without further incident, which was pretty much the most successful any mission of Dean's had been for a while, and he was willing to take his luck where he could get it. Right now, he was feeling blessed because his bundle of clothes contained not only his wallet, with enough in it for the cab fare out to where the Impala was hidden, but also the goddamn ugly priceless art treasure that he'd almost forgotten about, thrust in the inside pocket of his jacket with an expired betting slip (shit, he _knew_ he'd totally put a bet on that fight, goddamn, there was twenty bucks he was never going to see again) and an impressive quantity of lint. OK, so maybe the gods weren't exactly smiling, but at least they weren't doing the whole death-glare thing any more. For now.

The Impala was where they'd left it, covered in random leaves and branches and crap and looking none the worse for wear for its night out in the woods (which was more than you could say for its owner, whichever one you wanted to pick right now). Dean's head was beginning to clear, which was definitely a good thing, but his ribs and throat were beginning to ache again, which was kind of annoying. Neither he nor Sam was wearing any shoes, and when Dean went through the stuff he'd brought from the hospital, he could only find one of his boots. That was freakin weird. Who the hell steals one boot from some unconscious guy in a hospital? He remembered a time he'd run up against a spook with a thing for women's shoes, but at least that damn thing had always gone the whole hog. This was just amateurish. And also? Kinda creepy.

Shit. He'd left his boot on the freakin road. Well, there was nothing he could do about that right now, and after a little bit of practice he decided that it was easier to drive barefoot than with one shoe off and one shoe on. If Sam thought anything of all his general footwear manoeuvring, he didn't say anything about it, but then, he hadn't said much about anything since back in the hospital, and Dean figured he was still pretty much out of it. That was OK. It kind of made things easier.

The next stop was the motel. Dean was relieved he'd paid for two nights, and dodged into the room to grab their stuff. Everything was still laid out ready for the spell, and the place stunk to freakin high heaven. Jesus Christ, what the hell was it with bats and their goddamn blood? It was just wrong that something that came out of a freakin flying rat or whatever could smell that bad. Plus, Dean was pretty sure that if he'd had any intention of sticking around to check out at the appropriate time, he would have been saddled with a hefty cleaning bill to get the stench out of the soft furnishings. Even though he was planning on skipping out, he still felt vaguely outraged on his own behalf. Freakin bats.

When he got back in the car after shoving the stuff in the back, Sam glanced over at him and wrinkled his nose. "Dude, you reek."

"I'm not the one wearing a potential biohazard," Dean muttered, which wasn't strictly true, because he still had his scrubs on under his jacket, but it wasn't like Sam didn't have a little eau de gross about him too. Seemed like drugged up and stinky was the order of the day. Well, it was better than dead in a forest clearing.

"What?" Sam asked, kind of slow, like he was speaking underwater or something.

"Never mind," Dean said, and reversed out of the parking lot. Witty banter was definitely off the menu until the drugs worked their way out of Sam's system. In the meantime, Spokane was definitely no longer the place to be. They needed somewhere quiet to hole up and regroup, somewhere where they hadn't just ripped off a priceless piece of crap and left the owner dead on the floor. Also, they needed a pharmacy, preferably one that was closed, which, given that it was getting towards evening, shouldn't be too tough. Even when he was feeling about as compos mentis as roadkill, Dean remembered the name of the detox drug from Sam's chart, because some things were too important to forget, like your name, the name you were checked in under, where you left your car keys and your gun, and the medicine that might save your brother's life.

In the end, the pharmacy wasn't too tough. Dean found one on a back street that was closed and had an alarm that a kid could've handled (well, at any rate, he could've handled it when _he_ was a kid), grabbed a couple of bottles of Sam's pills plus some painkillers that wouldn't knock him on his ass, and got back out to the car and Sam in record time. "Here," he said, thrusting the bottle at Sam. "Take two."

Sam fumbled with the childproof cap for a couple of seconds, then dropped the pills into his hand and swallowed them without asking what they were. It was weird, because it was really _handy_ how Sam was being so obedient and easy to deal with, but every time he did something without arguing or even making a snarky remark, Dean felt his stomach twist. He knew it was just the drugs, and that Sam would be back to his normal, pain-in-the-ass self once they wore off, but each moment of silent acquiescence made an image flash before his eyes of Sam lying like a freakin wax doll in that clearing with no breath in his lungs.

Thoughts like that were really not helpful. Dean put it out of his mind, trying to come up with something else (wax doll New York Dolls punk heavy metal Metallica) but the damn image kept coming back (OK, wax doll House of Wax Paris Hilton sex tape porn, hey, that was a good one). Growling softly to himself, he pulled out onto the highway and headed out of Spokane.

Somewhere about fifty miles later, when Dean was sure that Sam had drifted off (wax doll blow up doll sex toys strippers, yeah, he was definitely getting better at this), a quiet voice sounded from the passenger seat.

"Dean... the things he said..."

Dean took a moment to get himself together, but only a moment. "It wasn't a he, it was an it. And demons lie, Sam. That's what they do. None of that crap was true, you hear me?"

Sam sort of turned, but from his sluggish movements and the fact that his eyes were still a little unfocussed, Dean could tell he wasn't with it yet. "How do you know? You don't even know me."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I only lived with you your entire freakin life."

"Not me," Sam muttered, and Dean wasn't even sure why he'd said it the way he had, except that Sam was _Sam_, maybe a little more twisted and bruised, but Sam nonetheless.

"You're not so different," he said.

Sam went quiet, and Dean looked over to see his head was lolling a little, though his eyes were still open, glazed but watching Dean. He tapped his hand on the steering wheel and ground his teeth a little, thought about trying to find a classic rock radio station, thought about how much he hated driving in the rain (not that it was raining, but it was something to think about, right?) and finally blew out a breath and bit the bullet.

"I know him too, you know," he said, wondering if Sam would remember this conversation in the morning, kind of hoping he wouldn't. "He loved you. I know he did."

Sam shifted and swallowed a couple of times. His head lolled over to the other side, facing out of the window, and Dean didn't know whether it was intentional or not. He didn't answer, and Dean figured he might as well finish what he had to say.

"There's no excuse for what he did," he said tentatively, because even though Dad was a universe away and hadn't ever hit Sam in anger, it felt disloyal to speak about him like this. "But I know he loved you."

For a while, Dean thought that maybe Sam had drifted off and hadn't heard what he said at all. Maybe it was better that way, except that demons were experts at finding your exact weak spots, your most painful insecurities, and ripping them open, and Dean didn't want Sam to go on thinking that their dad wished he was dead. And then Sam spoke again, his voice muffle and still raspy from the ventilator.

"I don't hate him, Dean. Sometimes... sometimes it was good with us. Jess thought I ought to, but... I never hated him."

Dean didn't know what to say to that. He felt his throat constrict, and a weird sense of relief, like he'd been waiting for that all this time, waiting for Sam's absolution for their father (for _Dean_). "How come?" he asked, and told himself his voice was rough because he'd just been choked half to death twelve hours ago.

Sam sort of sighed, and his shoulders twitched, but he didn't turn towards Dean. "He was my dad," he said.

A roadsign flashed by, announcing their approach to the state line. Dean took a deep breath and drove on into the dark.

----

"Hey," said Sam, looking up from the book he was reading. It was past nine o'clock, and they'd been on the road for hours, stopping at a gas station for junk food and to change their clothes in the filthy bathroom, but otherwise just driving, kind of back in the direction of Blue Earth, but really mostly aimlessly. Dean still didn't feel safe enough to stop and find a motel to do the spell in. At least, that was what he told himself.

"What?" Dean asked, turning the radio down. Sam had been growing steadily less dopey, and the haze in Dean's head was almost entirely gone, replaced with a bone-deep ache that the more conventional painkillers he'd ripped off from the pharmacy didn't quite manage to quell.

"I found a passage about demons in here," Sam said, waving the book at him. Dean barely recognised it as the stiff, shiny new paperback they'd bought the day before. It looked like it had already been read fifteen times, its cover battered and dog-eared like it had been chewed on by a freakin puppy or something. Dean had a sudden image of Sam chewing enthusiastically on books of ancient rituals and stifled a laugh.

"Oh yeah? What did those sumo wrestler guys have to say about ol' black-eyes and his pals, huh?"

"Sumerians," Sam said. "Listen: 'The demons are immortal, but they require allies. They seek not to bond, but to subjugate. Those who could destroy them are those who will fight under them, for the tools are immortal but they are poured into mortal shape.'"

Dean thought about this. "Great. Everything's suddenly crystal clear."

Sam shook his head. "I'm not finished. 'The tools are the ploughshare and the sword, the hammer and the loom. The demons do not understand the complexity of creation, for they seek only to destroy, and only those tools of keen edge are sought by them. They shall have dominion over the sword and the axe, the arrow and the spear, until the day the sword is forged anew and brought into the world beneath a shield. On that day the crows will gather, and war will be foretold.'"

"Jeez," Dean muttered. "Didn't anyone ever teach these guys how to speak English?"

The pause that followed this was so long that Dean looked over to Sam, who was staring at him, unblinking. "What?"

"Nothing," Sam said, looking back at the book. "I just thought you were joking."

"Yeah, well, I ain't," Dean started, and was going to add something about freakin prophecies and their lame-ass melodrama when Sam grunted and hunched over, screwing his eyes shut, and Dean decided they had some bigger problems than some dead crazy seer guys from a few thousand years ago.

It was lucky the verge of the road they were on was grassy and soft, because Sam fell out of the car as soon as Dean opened the door, and Dean's reflexes were still too shot from drugs and pain to catch him before he hit. He groaned, curling in on himself, jerked a couple of times, and then went stiff in that way that was becoming all too goddamn familiar, and started staring at nothing, his eyes moving rapidly. Dean sat anxiously next to him and kept a hand on his arm, as much for his own sake as for Sam's.

When it was done, Sam rolled over and quietly threw up in the grass. Dean kept a hand on the back of his neck and hated everything that had brought him to this moment. Cars flew by on the road, and neither brother moved.

Finally, Sam struggled to a sitting position. "It's bad," he said. "It's bad."

Dean felt his stomach lurch. He almost didn't dare ask, but he did anyway. "What is it?"

Sam closed his eyes, started to shake his head and then winced and stopped. "He's having visions. All the time, one after another. I could... see them." He looked like he might throw up again at the memory. "He can't... break free from them."

If Dean hadn't already been sitting on the ground, he thought he probably would have collapsed. "That's why he's in the nuthouse," he said, not even remembering to sugarcoat his words (and at this point, sugarcoating really was pretty low on his list of priorities).

Sam looked miserable. "I think so."

Dean chewed the inside of his lip. "How did he seem?"

It was a long time before Sam answered, and when he did he didn't look Dean in the eye. "He's not calling for you any more," he said finally.

Dean gave himself one more minute, allowed himself that much time to break down, and then pulled himself together and clambered to his feet. "Come on," he said, reaching down and hauling Sam up, ignoring the protest in his ribs. "We need to find a motel and do this thing."

----

If the bat's blood still stank, it didn't register on Dean's senses. He felt both utterly lost and more filled with purpose than he had since he had woken up to find Sam gone. His doubt was still there, flaring up every time he saw Sam watching him, and he knew he should say something, should somehow make it right, make sure Sam would be OK once he had gone. But he was afraid to start, because what if the answer was no, what if Sam _wasn't_ going to be OK, and what the hell could he do about it? Every time he closed his eyes he saw _his_ Sam lying alone in an institution with the deaths of strangers searing into his brain. He couldn't not go. He couldn't.

Sam painted a curving line across his bare back, and Dean suppressed the urge to shiver at the touch. "Make sure you follow the diagram exactly," he said.

Sam grunted, but didn't reply. Dean didn't even want to analyse that. There was no point making it even worse. All the same, he was freakin antsy as hell (well, he was about to try and transfer between realities without a freakin warp-drive or wormhole to his name, so he had the right, really), and he couldn't stop himself as he looked around the complex circle they'd drawn on the floor from saying, "Sam, you hear me? We've only got one chance, it'd better be right."

"I'm doing it, OK?" Sam snapped. "You're the one who... Jesus."

Dean frowned, wanting to twist to get a view of Sam but afraid to mess up the freakish forest of curlicues and freakin bunny rabbits he was drawing on Dean's back. "You OK?"

"Yeah, I just... still got a headache from earlier, that's... fuck."

There was a heavy thud behind him, and Dean did turn now, because he had heard the sound of six-foot-four of Sam Winchester hitting the ground often enough to recognise it instantly. Sam was twitching, and for a horrible moment Dean thought it was a seizure again, and his brain was screaming _not now not again can't do this can't help them both _when Sam started doing the vacant stare thing and Dean realised it was another vision. _Another_ one. Christ.

And if it was another vision so soon after the last, what did that mean? Was it another vision of his Sam? Did that mean something had changed? Jesus Christ, when did the visions ever take this long anyway?

And then Sam came out of it, pupils blown, blinking and gasping, and the words he whispered made Dean feel like he was falling from a great height.

"You're too late," he said. "You're going to be too late."


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: see previous chapters.

Many thanks to airen, JazzyIrish, Insane Troll Logic, friendly, SilverKitsune1, carocali, red121, sasha2002, bally2cute, November'sGuest, Nana56, moosiemaggie, sugarquill4ron, PissedOffEskimo, Lisette, Annibal, PadfootObsessed329, buffyaddict, roxy071288, MistyEyes and Harrigan for their lovely reviews. YOu are all so very kind to take the time to let me know what you think of this story. hugs for everyone

Well, this was originally going to be the last chapter, but then Dean rambled on for 7000 words and only got me through about five per cent of the plot I'd been planning, so, um, it's not. And I have a sneaking suspicion the next one won't be, either. Oh, Dean, you do ramble so. We'll get there in the end, though!

----

_There was a heavy thud behind him, and Dean did turn now, because he had heard the sound of six-foot-four of Sam Winchester hitting the ground often enough to recognise it instantly. Sam was twitching, and for a horrible moment Dean thought it was a seizure again, and his brain was screaming _not now not again can't do this can't help them both_ when Sam started doing the vacant stare thing and Dean realised it was another vision. _Another_ one. Christ._

_And if it was another vision so soon after the last, what did that mean? Was it another vision of his Sam? Did that mean something had changed? Jesus Christ, when did the visions ever take this long anyway?_

_And then Sam came out of it, pupils blown, blinking and gasping, and the words he whispered made Dean feel like he was falling from a great height._

"_You're too late," he said. "You're going to be too late."_

_---- _

**But for the Grace, Chapter Eleven**

It was only a minute, less than a minute, that Dean stood stunned, but it felt like too long, too long. It seemed like a million thoughts ran through his head in that time, but only one of them made sense. _No_. He wasn't going to be too late.

"Finish the job," he said, and he hit a kind of plateau where there were so many goddamn emotions dancing the freakin fandango in his guts that it was like he didn't feel anything any more. "Get off the floor and finish the job, Sam. Now."

Sam stared up at him like he didn't understand what Dean was saying, like he was waiting for a translation into freakin psychic drunk language or something, and that was fucking not happening, because there wasn't time to hesitate now, not now when there was even a chance that he might be too late (_too late_).

"Now, Sam," he snapped, and Sam scrambled to his feet with a wince, but didn't make a move towards the paintbrush.

"Dean..." he started.

"What, you waiting for an invitation from the Queen?" Dean asked. "Paint the fucking pattern."

"Dean," Sam said again, and Dean stared at him, not comprehending what the hell he could be thinking of standing there _not doing anything_. "No," said Sam.

It happened before Dean was really aware of what he was doing, but he couldn't really say that if he'd had time to think about it he would have acted any differently, because Sam was just standing, just _standing_, what the hell, and wasn't it _him_ who had said the words _too late_? At any rate, the gun was in his hand and pointing at Sam before he had time to take it back, and Sam was frozen, staring like he'd never seen a freakin .45 before (which wasn't so far from the truth, but Dean was in no fit goddamn state to deal with the crazy somersaults his brain tended to do when he tried to separate the two Sams properly, because the whole 'alternate version of your brother' thing made _Dallas_ look like freakin _Teletubbies_). "Sam, finish the job, or so help me, I'll..."

"You'll what?" Sam asked, never taking his eyes off the gun. "You'll shoot me? We're back to that again, are we?" And Dean knew he was right, of course. What the hell was he going to do, shoot one Sam to save another? It struck him for a moment that that was exactly what he was planning to do, abandon this Sam to his fate because there was no other way to rescue his own Sam, but that was a thought he let go of without regret, because right now the only thing that was important was that this gun-pointing was just as much empty bluffing as it had been back in that parking lot in Palo Alto a week and a lifetime ago, only now he didn't even have the fact that Sam didn't remember him to shield him any more, everything had been stripped away, and even Sam's glance was enough to make him bleed.

"I need you to help me," he said, and the words hurt more than just his bruised throat.

Sam nodded slowly. "I am helping you, Dean. But you've got to listen to me."

"There's no time," Dean said, feeling like ever heartbeat was another step towards the edge of some invisible precipice (and he was in no hurry to pull a _Thelma and Louise_, especially since he didn't really think a headscarf was a good look for him).

"There's time," said Sam, and held out his hand for the gun. "Just listen."

Crippled with a tangle of fear, confusion and nausea, Dean sank down onto the bed and listened.

----

"They're demons," said Sam. "Black eyes, same as the guy back at the mansion. There's at least two of them, but there might have been more. It wasn't... clear." He rubbed his forehead, like recalling the vision was making his head hurt, which, given the fun pain bonanza that seemed to come as a free gift with most of Sam's whacked-out psychic episodes, it probably was.

"And you're saying they just took Sam? They didn't hurt him?"

Sam shook his head. "He was still totally out of it, but they just wheeled him out of there."

"Did you see where they took him?" asked Dean.

"No," Sam said, "but... I know there's no way you'd find him before..."

"Before what?" Dean asked, though he wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

Sam looked away. "I don't know."

"OK, well," Dean stood up, "we... Sam and me... we've stopped these visions from coming true before, so we just gotta hurry." He was already cursing himself for having wasted this much time, though really, since the only other option had been shooting his brother, the whole cursing bit was kind of pointless, but then, pointless cursing was pretty much the best kind.

"Dean, you don't understand," Sam said.

"Well, then _tell_ me for Christ's sake," Dean said, because he was sick of this stalling and definitely sick of being reminded of how much about this whole gig he didn't understand.

"It's you," said Sam. "It's you going back that... triggers it. They know you're back, and that's why they take Sam."

Dean stood very still, feeling like if he moved anything it might fall off (and _amputation_ had definitely never been on his list of things to experience before he died). "What?"

"I saw you arrive back," Sam said, "and it was like they were, I don't know, _listening_. And then they took him."

"But," Dean wasn't sure how to process this new piece of information, but he sure as hell knew where his thoughts were leading him, and it wasn't to the goddamn funfair, "you can't... I mean... does that mean I can't... ever?"

Oh yeah, Dean was coherent as all hell, and he sounded like a total moron, but dignity was pretty much out the window right now. He waited, waited for Sam to tell him he was wrong, that he'd thought it wrong, but he couldn't work out how he could think it any other way, and Sam wasn't saying anything, was just staring at him with this weird expression on his face which Dean would have said was hope if he didn't know better, but he did know, and he felt his knees lock as he tried desperately to keep from falling down.

And then Sam looked down and away, and the thing that might have been hope was replaced with something that was definitely closer to resignation, and Sam said, "No. That's not what it means, Dean."

Dean felt every muscle in his body sag simultaneously in relief, and he stumbled forward and crumpled onto the bed. Sam was still watching him with this weird expression, but Dean figured Sam could pull any face he cared to if he had a plan that meant Dean could go back. "How?" he asked, feeling suddenly limp as fucking McDonald's lettuce (and by the way, _how_ did they manage to get the lettuce so freakin limp in that joint? It was like a goddamn artform), so utterly drained that he couldn't even manage another word.

"When you came here," Sam said slowly, like he was still thinking things through, "you woke up in the same motel room you went to sleep in, right?"

Dean thought back to that night. He hadn't the slightest idea where he'd been when he went to sleep (except that he thought there was a pretty high likelihood that he'd passed out while he was still at the bar), but he had, at least, woken up in the same _town_ he'd gone to sleep in. Probably. "Uh... yeah."

"Right, so," Sam said, "we can assume that the spell or whatever it is moves you dimensionally, but not spatially. So when you go back, you should end up in the same place in the... other reality that you left from in this one."

"OK..." Dean said, still not sure how this was going to help, even though Sam was looking at him like he should have jumped up and yelled freakin eureka by now (yeah, _that_ look. Dean would have said that he hadn't missed it, except in the most private places in his mind he thought that maybe there wasn't anything about his little brother that he didn't miss right now).

Sam huffed impatiently (yeah, Dean missed that too, God help him) and said, "I saw the name of the hospital, Dean. All we've got to do is find it, get you inside, and do the spell there. That way, you'll arrive back right next to Sam."

Dean imagined transferring realities, grabbing his psychically-crippled, quite possibly insane six-foot-four brother and battling off a couple of demons to break his way out of a mental institution. Well, yeah, OK. He could do that.

He could do that. He could do it, and it wouldn't be too late, and goddamn if that wasn't the best news Dean had had in what felt like a very fucking long time. "All right," he said, aware suddenly that he was half-lying on the bed like a freakin loser, like he wasn't even in control of his own body (and OK, yeah, maybe he wasn't, but that didn't mean it had to be totally _obvious_ like he wasn't in control of not being in control or his body or whatever), and straightened, stood up, started pacing, because pacing was _manly_, right? Pacing was action, pacing helped him think, and _God_, he really needed to think, because he was only going to get one shot at this, and he had to get it right.

"What's the name?" he asked, but Sam was already heading for the laptop, skirting the detritus of the half-finished spell that lay across the floor like some crazy magic piñata had burst and strewn freakishly random hoodoo crap all over the goddamn place. Freakin piñatas, Dean had always thought there was something not right about them, because really, the most efficient way to get at the candy would be to shoot the fuckers, not beat them with sticks, and teaching kids bad habits was not something Dean condoned (well, _some_ bad habits, anyway).

"Rosevale Psychiatric Hospital," Sam said, and he was tapping away already, the crappy motel lighting glinting on the sheen of sweat that always covered his face after a vision. "I just hope there's not too many of... OK, there's three, in New Jersey, Idaho, and California. I'll see if I can pull up some pictures."

"Right," Dean said. "What state are we in now?"

Sam gave him a disgusted look, like just because he had had a seizure that morning and had just suffered through two brain-crippling visions that somehow meant that Dean shouldn't expect him to be in charge of remembering shit. Screw that. Fucked-up alcoholic or not, the day Sam wasn't in charge of remembering shit was the day Dean started listening to freakin Radiohead (and, just to be clear on that one, that was _never_ going to happen. _Never_.)

"Montana," Sam said. "Remember the big sign? And the mountains?"

"Yeah, whatever," Dean said, peering over Sam's shoulder. "You said it was raining, right?"

"Yeah," Sam said, scrolling through some page with a lot of text about depression or whatever.

"Well, it'll be Jersey, then," Dean said. "It always freakin rains in Jersey, every time we go."

"You've been to New Jersey?" Sam asked, clicking onto a new page, and goddamn if it wasn't the smiling zombies from the rehab leaflets again, fuckers sure got around.

"Yeah, a bunch of times," Dean said. "All sorts of poltergeist crap goes on up there for some reason. Why, you never been?" He stared at the smiling zombies for a bit longer, until he realised that Sam had stopped scrolling and was looking at him with this weird expression. "What?"

Sam looked hastily away. "Nothing," he said, and Dean felt a sudden unease ghost through his stomach, because lately Sam (_this_ Sam) had been keeping a whole lot from him and he didn't like it, and if he wasn't careful secrets were going to get this Sam killed, and maybe his own Sam too. So he grabbed Sam's chin and forced him to look up.

"What?" he said, and this time he wasn't just asking.

Sam's face went mutinous, and Dean thought he was going to make some stupid snappy comeback, which would piss Dean off because sometimes he thought that this Sam was _funnier_ than him, or at least more sarcastic, and that was not allowed, goddammit, but then Sam cut his eyes away again and sighed.

"I don't know," he said. "It's just... I feel like there's this whole life you've had without me and... I'd like to hear about it, you know?"

Dean let go of Sam's chin. He hadn't expected _that_. Revelations of further drug addiction, maybe, or that Sam was thinking of having a sex-change operation, or that his foster parents used to lock him in the cellar and feed him freakin rats or something – given the shit that Sam had come out with in the last week, none of those things would have surprised Dean, or at least, none of them would have surprised him as much as this little confession. "Sam..."

Sam looked sharply away, his face twisting bitterly. "Don't make a production out of it, Dean. It doesn't matter. There's no time, anyway."

_No time_. The week before, Dean had been desperate to try and shift reality back to how he remembered it, and later to move back to where he was supposed to be. And now that he actually had that in his grasp, there was _no time_. But that was always the way it went, because, as he'd been reminded far too freakin many times recently, irony was a bitch, and she really, _really_ hated Winchesters.

"It's not the one in Jersey." Sam broke into his thoughts before they really had a chance to get going, and Dean could at least be grateful for that, because hopping aboard the glee train to emo land was really not his bag right now.

"Really?" he asked, leaning over Sam's shoulder again. "It _always_ freakin rains in Jersey."

"Nope. The one in Jersey is concrete," Sam pointed at the screen, "we're looking for brick."

Dean sighed. "Well, I guess that's good. Jersey's a pretty long haul from here. What about the other two?"

"Not Idaho," Sam said. "I checked that first, since it's the closest."

"So, California, right?"

Sam shrugged. "Or maybe it's just not listed on the internet. Or..." he paused, like he was trying to decide whether to say what was on his mind. "It could have a different name in this reality, or maybe not even exist."

Dean bit his lip. That was freakin great. If the place was called something different, that meant they were looking for a red-brick building somewhere where it sometimes rains. Oh yeah, that was like looking for a showgirl in Vegas. "You got some kind of psychic compass or something? Maybe you could work out which direction it was in at least."

Sam shot him a look which said _don't be an idiot_, and that was pretty fair, because Dean _knew_ that wasn't how the visions worked, knew it better than this Sam, since he'd been dealing with them for longer, but the idea that the thread of hope he'd been clinging to since Sam's post-vision pronouncement might be breaking was making him feel pretty much like he'd just run out of a burning building and into a goddamn quicksand swamp (kind of like that one in that movie with the giant flying dog where the kid loses his horse... Or whatever, obviously Dean had never really watched that movie,and he _definitely_ hadn't cried).

Then Sam said _got it_, and Dean let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding (which was weird, because holding his breath kind of made his ribs ache, but then, right now every freakin thing pretty much made his ribs ache, and Dean had other things to worry about, like whether his brother was being abducted by freakin_ demons_ while Dean was sitting on his ass in a motel room in another _dimension_, so he figured it was fair enough that he hadn't been giving his body his full attention).

"California," he said, leaning over to look at the picture on Sam's screen. The photo had been taken in full sunlight, but the old building still looked kind of like something out of a horror movie, like the architect had been briefed to build the freakiest-looking lunatic asylum he could, and Dean thought that only people whose families didn't give a shit about them would wind up in there, or maybe the ones that thought they were vampires or Marilyn Manson or whatever (were there crazy people who thought they were Marilyn Manson? More importantly, how could you tell the difference between crazy people who thought they were Marilyn Manson and crazy people who actually _were_ Marilyn Manson?). It looked like the kind of place people were sent to be forgotten and die alone. (And _Sam_ was in there, _Sam_.)

"California," Sam agreed, and closed the laptop.

"Let's get the hell out of Dodge," said Dean, relieved to find himself still clinging to that thread, and to have a goal again. California was many miles away, but if Sam was right, then there was time.

There was time.

----

Sam slept for the first few hours as they drove west and south, and Dean thought probably he ought to have been tired too, but he'd popped a couple of the extra strong painkillers he'd swiped from the drugstore, washed down with coffee and Red Bull, and he just felt wired and jumpy. Things had started happening too fast, like he was on some out of control fairground ride where the operator guy or whatever had just wandered off and let it spin faster and faster (and that was an ideal recipe for getting someone else's puke in your face, and Dean _really_ didn't want to find out what the real-life equivalent of that part of the metaphor was).

About an hour before the sun rose, Sam woke up, scrubbing his face with his hands and blinking furiously. "Where are we?"

"Still in Montana, I think," Dean said. They hadn't passed a sign welcoming them to anywhere else, but Dean only had Sam's word for it that they'd been in Montana in the first place, and yeah, OK, there _were_ mountains, but given that he'd been living in the freakin Twilight Zone for the last week, he wasn't taking anything for granted any more. For all he knew, they could be in freakin Albuquerque, and to be honest, that wouldn't be any weirder than some of the shit that kept going on.

Sam cleared his throat. "Want me to drive?"

Dean snorted. "Remember that whole alcohol problem, little brother?"

"Oh yeah, because I hear broken ribs and a concussion actually make your driving better," Sam retorted. "In fact, I hear they're gonna make them compulsory next year."

"Whatever, smartass," Dean said. "I've driven your ungrateful ass around with far worse, and I've never crashed once."

Sam didn't say anything to that, but Dean remembered their conversation the night before. Then, there had been no time. Now, they were on the road, with nothing _but_ time. He shifted in his seat, and said (casually, like he was just passing the time), "there was this time when I was seventeen and we were in – Tennessee I think it was, it was freakin hot as hell anyway – when Dad got banged up in a troll hunt, and the damn thing was coming after us like it was the freakin energiser bunny or something, and I was driving with a broken arm, and you were shooting at it from the passenger seat and screaming like you were out of your freakin mind." He grinned at the memory. "I never knew you knew that many curses. It was pretty freakin cool."

Sam sort of ducked his head a little, and turned so he was facing slightly away from Dean. "Guess that's why they call it shotgun," he muttered.

Dean laughed. "That's what you said then, too," he said. "But that wasn't the worst. The worst was this time in Ohio..."

Dean kept talking, and Sam didn't look at him, but Dean could tell that he was listening. For the first time in a few days, he felt like maybe there was time.

----

Around midday, they crossed the state line into Idaho. Dean had stopped telling stories an hour or so earlier, and the car was quiet (well, except for AC/DC, but that wasn't noise so much as a soundtrack, right?) but it was a pretty comfortable kind of quiet, almost like everything was back the way it ought to be. Dean hummed along with _Highway to Hell_, and even his ribs seemed to have mostly given up aching, like they knew he wasn't going to pay any attention to them anyway.

"Hey," Sam said, "listen to this."

Dean rolled his eyes. Sam had been buried in the book of old prophecies again for the last half hour, and the last thing Dean needed now was another blast of portentous gibberish about crows and shields and freakin power tools or whatever. "Do I have to?"

Sam shot him a look. "You know, I never thought having a big brother would be such a pain in the ass."

Dean smirked. "Yeah, well, you're not exactly Mr. Sugar and Spice yourself, sparky."

Sam rolled his eyes. "OK, you remember the stuff about the sword being forged anew and brought forth under a shield?"

"Uh... I think I saw a really bad movie on the Sci-Fi Channel once..."

"Shut up. Anyway, it goes on to say, 'the sword will be the demons' bane, and the demons will not wield it, though they stretch out their hands towards it, for the shield will burn them like fire.'"

"Seriously," Dean interrupted, "why are we interested in this mumbo-jumbo crap? These guys have been dead for freakin ever, and prophecies are all a load of bullshit anyway."

Sam stared at him for so long that Dean started getting kind of nervous. Damn, that kid knew how to stare. "What?"

"You're telling me you don't believe in prophecies?"

Dean shot him an amused glance. "What, 'fire in the sky, the lion shall lie down with the lamb, be afraid, be very afraid', all that crap? Come on, Sam."

"Dean," Sam said slowly, "I have _visions_."

"Well, yeah, but..." Dean stopped. He wanted to say _that's different_, but it occurred to him that there was no real reason it should be. On the other hand, that made him pretty uneasy, because seeing things a few hours before they happened was one thing, but the idea of predestination, _destiny_, made him about as comfortable as a truck driver at a knitting circle. And anyway, even if some prophecies were vaguely accurate, this one that Sam was reading made about as much sense as goddamn _Mulholland Drive_ (which, by the way, what the _hell_ was that movie all about, anyway?).

Clearly, Sam didn't share his opinion. "'The sword and shield are immortal; they cannot be destroyed, though their mortal forms be damaged beyond repair. The demons will rage around the gates, they will reach out time and again, but the shield shall stay firm and the sword will stand against them until the day of reckoning is at hand.'"

"Yeah, yeah, Day of Reckoning, End of the World, yadda yadda," Dean complained. "Remind me why I gotta listen to this again?"

"I think..." Sam stared down at the book, then flipped back a page, "I don't know... maybe... This is kinda weird."

Dean glanced over. "You gonna tell me what the hell you're thinking in full sentences, or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?"

"You said you met another kid with powers, right? Whose mom died the same way as mine?"

"Yeah, right," Dean said, remembering Max. He hadn't told Sam the whole story about that one, but he figured he ought to know some of it, because if there was one other kid like him out there, there was probably more than one.

"What if..." Sam said. "'The tools are immortal but they are poured into mortal shape'... what if that's us, kids like Max and me?"

"What? What are you talking about?" Dean felt his hands tighten on the wheel. _Destiny_ was bad enough, but destiny plus Sam was not a combination he was ready to deal with.

"It basically says that these 'tools' are incarnated as people," Sam continued, like he wasn't even listening (which probably he wasn't). "We know that demons are involved in these, uh, powers somehow, and the prophecy says they'll be in control of the tools that can be used as weapons, even though those tools could destroy them."

"What, and you think you might be one of those weapons? That's pretty far-fetched, Sam, even for you. Anyway, there's no demon controlling you."

"No, listen," Sam said, and dammit if Dean wouldn't be pretty happy never to have to listen to any of this crap again, "what if... what if the shield is _you_?"

OK, that was fucking _it_. Dean pulled over in a screech of tires, earning himself a blast on the horn from the guy behind (which he really gave about as much of a crap about as he did about Vladivostock's chances of winning the world championship in curling or whatever). "Sam, stop."

Sam looked kind of surprised. "Dean, what are you doing?"

"I don't want to hear this stuff," Dean said, turning the full force of his glare on Sam (not that _that _ever did any good, but you can't blame a guy for trying). "It's bullshit, you got me? Jesus, Sam, only you could go from crows and axes and full-blown fucking apocalypses to thinking that we're involved somehow."

"Dean," Sam started, but Dean was sick of this shit and he wasn't about to let Sam slow him down.

"No, listen. You know fuck all about demons, you didn't even know they existed until a week ago, which, let me just add, is a fucking joke since they killed everyone you ever cared about, and you've had one week away from your safe little law-school apple-pie existence and your bright future in suburbia and now you think you can read something like that and work out what it means? Christ, Sam, talk about an overinflated sense of your own importance."

Sam didn't move, but it seemed to Dean like he pulled back into himself, his face closing up, body stiffening slightly. If Dean hadn't been so pissed off, he might have regretted what he said, but he _was_ pissed off, he was freakin _enraged_, because he just wanted to get this Sam back to his life and get his own Sam out of that freakin nuthouse, and here Sam was trying to make everything out to be more complicated than it really needed to be, just like always, _God_, why couldn't he just stop _thinking_ sometimes?

"I'm failing out," Sam said, and Dean's train of thought derailed with the grace of a herd of drunken buffalo.

"What?"

Sam turned his face away. "Of Stanford," he said. "They gave me some time off after Jess, but... They say if I fail this semester, I'm going to lose my scholarship."

Dean stared. "Sam, you've never failed anything in your life."

Sam laughed, fuck, it was that laugh that Dean hated again, and he realised he hadn't heard it for a day or two (and that was one thing he definitely hadn't missed). "Guess there's a first time for everything, right?"

"Jesus," Dean said, turning back to stare at the road in front of them. It was starting to rain, and cars flew past in the grey light, every one with a destination in mind, somewhere to go. "Jesus."

"Yeah, so." Sam shifted uncomfortably. "I guess I don't know anything about anything."

Dean chewed his lip. He remembered how hard Sam had worked those last two years at school, when they'd been moving every couple of months, and how determined he'd been when he finally told his family what he was planning, how he'd walked out without a second glance to make his new life, the one he'd been dreaming about since he was old enough to realise that he wasn't normal. "You're an idiot," he said.

Sam shrugged. "Guess so."

"No," Dean turned back to look at Sam now, "don't give me that crap. You're failing out because of the drinking? I mean, Christ, Sam, I really thought you would be smart enough not to ruin your life like that. What the hell happened to my genius brother, huh?"

Sam was silent for a long moment. Then he muttered, "He died in a fire."

"What?" Dean was pissed and confused enough already without having to deal with Sam's freakin mystery act into the bargain.

"It's not the drinking," Sam said. "I'm not failing because of that."

"Then what? What could make you just give up on your future? Because the Sam I know would never do that."

"Yeah?" Sam looked at him now, and for a moment it was completely obvious from his face that he hadn't intended to tell Dean this particular secret; the moment passed before Dean really had time to consider the implications of that, though, and the hard lines that didn't fit Sam's face returned. "Well, I'm not the Sam you know, remember? And to be honest, I'm pretty sick of you comparing me to him all the time, because I didn't get to have you, and maybe I'm less of a good person, but I didn't ask you to come here and shove that in my face. You haven't been my brother all my life, and you're freakin _leaving_ as soon as you can find a way, so it's a little late to start now."

Dean sat back, stunned by the force of Sam's tirade. Had he really been comparing this Sam to his so often? He thought back over the last few days, and yeah, so, OK, maybe he had, because really he couldn't help that, it wasn't every day you met an alternate version of your brother, anyone would be comparing the two, right? But he was pretty sure he hadn't done it out loud (because OK, Dean was a pretty insensitive guy, and he was comfortable with that aspect of himself, because sensitivity was for girls and floppy-haired emo kids, but he wasn't _that_ much of an asshole, at least most of the time), so where the hell had Sam picked up on it from?

"Sam..." he said, but Sam interrupted him (and he was pretty glad, because he really didn't have a plan for what he was going to say next, and he had a horrible feeling it was going to be yet another discussion about his feelings or whatever).

"No, Dean," Sam said, quieter now, calmer, but still with that edge of bitterness. "I'm not him. I can't be him."

There was a break in the traffic, but the rain was coming down harder now, beating on the windshield in a constant low rumble. It was still the middle of the day, but it felt like it was getting dark. Dean thought about what Sam had said: _I didn't get to have you_. Was that really all it was? All the differences between the two Sams, everything down to the simple fact that the Dean that belonged to this reality had been a freakin moron and gotten himself killed when he was supposed to live? It was pretty difficult to believe in a lot of ways, because it meant that Dean was pretty damn important (but in other ways, it was pretty easy to believe, because it meant that this messed-up life that Sam was living was pretty much Dean's fault). Whatever, in the end whether it was just Dean or something else as well didn't really matter at all, he supposed; the fact was, Sam was messed up, and it was Dean's job to fix it, like always. Which, in this case, pretty much seemed to involve talking about his feelings, and wasn't that a freakin kick in the head?

"I'm not asking you to be anyone else, Sam," Dean said, wondering how true that was, "but you can't just cash in your chips for no good reason. You got a life! My-" He stopped suddenly, because he'd been about to say _my Sam would give his right arm for what you've got_, and he realised two things at the same time, one of which was that he really _was_ comparing the two Sams all the time, and the other of which was that he wasn't totally sure if that was true, because the more he learned about what this Sam had, the more he thought that you'd have to be freakin crazyto want to change places with him.

"I have a reason," Sam insisted.

"Yeah? Well tell me what the hell it is, then, or I'm hauling your ass back to Stanford right now, whether you want it or not."

Sam opened his mouth angrily, then closed it again and looked down at his hands. The drumming of the rain was the only sound in the car for a minute, and then Sam said _Jess_, and Dean remembered that actually, his Sam _had_ given up on his future, and Dean had been secretly glad, not that Sam had lost Jess of course, never that, but that Sam was back with him, had realised that his place was with his family and _normal_ was just a fantasy, yeah, OK, maybe he'd been glad about that. But it wasn't true of course – Sam hadn't realised anything of the sort. Sam had lost Jess, and he'd given up. And Dean had been glad.

OK, so Dean's Sam had done that, and it couldn't be taken back now, but Sam had said only a few weeks ago back in Chicago that once they'd killed the demon, he would go back to school, so yeah, at first he'd given up on his future, but eventually he'd realised he still wanted it. And the whole thought of his Sam going back to school and abandoning Dean a second time made Dean's stomach twist with fear and anger and resentment, but _this_ Sam could have that chance, _this_ Sam wouldn't be abandoning anyone if he went after the future he wanted, and yeah, maybe that was because he didn't have anyone left to abandon, but at least he could turn that to his advantage a little. He was obviously kind of screwed up right now, though (yeah, which was pretty much like saying that Michael freakin Jackson was _a little_ screwed up), so it was up to Dean to make sure he didn't drop the ball.

"Sam," he said (carefully, because he knew from bitter freakin experience that this particular subject could set Sam off like a freakin psychotic nuclear warhead), "you think Jess would want this for you? That she'd want you to give up your life? I mean, I know you're hurting, man, but you're still here, and eventually you're going to have to start living again."

Sam turned his head and stared at Dean, and his face was so totally blank that Dean couldn't tell what effect his words had had, or even if Sam had heard them at all. Dean had faced down things that would make Arnold freakin Schwarzenegger piss his goddam pants, but that look on his brother's face made him feel like he was breathing ice water. Then, without saying a word, Sam wrenched open the door of the Impala and stepped out into the rain.

Shit. Looked like whatever effect Dean's little speech had had on Sam, it hadn't been to fire up his goddamn ambition or whatever (unless he was planning on walking back to Stanford, which Dean supposed was possible but pretty freakin dumb, and if that really was Sam's plan then that probably meant that he wasn't going to get his scholarship back anyway, because he really was an idiot). Dean pulled open his own door, wishing that Sam didn't insist on having these scenes outside when it seemed like there was more water than air out there, and hurried after the retreating figure.

Sam was walking along the edge of the road, but the visibility was pretty damn close to zero, and it was kind of like being inside a coal cellar at night. A really freakin wet coal cellar. Every few seconds, headlights would loom up out of the rain and pass Sam too freakin close, but he didn't flinch or move to the side, just kept freakin walking like he actually had somewhere to go.

"Sam," Dean yelled, but the dim figure didn't stop or turn, and that might have been because he didn't want to or just because he couldn't hear a thing, and Dean had never really realised rain could be so goddamn _loud_. He started to run, because Sam's legs were about five miles long, and Dean was never going to catch up with him unless he put on some goddamn speed.

"Sam," he said again, grabbing hold of Sam's shoulder and pulling, and Sam turned to face him, fucking _looming_ over him in that way that Dean _really_ freakin hated (honestly, was it really so much to ask that his little brother actually be shorter than him? That's not unreasonable, right?).

"Leave me alone," he said, or yelled really, because that was pretty much the default method of conversation when you were in a goddamn monsoon or whatever.

"That's not gonna happen."

Sam glared down at him, and Dean was having kind of a hard time looking up because the rain kept falling in his goddamn eyes.

"Why the hell not?" Sam asked. "Why the hell won't you just let me get on with my life?"

"Because you're fucking it up, is why!" Dean was kind of getting into this whole yelling thing now. "You're pissing away the life you always wanted because of some stupid sense of guilt or whatever, and I'm not gonna freakin let it happen, because I may not have been around for you for the last twenty-two years, but I'm here _now_."

"What the hell would you know about what I've always wanted?" Sam screamed, and Dean was pretty sure that even the watery bombing raid that seemed to be going on didn't warrant that level of volume, but he was equally sure that he could go one louder.

"Because I _know_ you, Sam! How many times do I have to freakin say it before it sinks into that goddamn skull of yours? I'm your _brother_!"

And that was when Sam grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him up so that they were face to face (well, OK, Sam was still slightly higher, the fucker, but it was a close-run thing). He was so close that Dean would have been able to feel his breath against his cheeks if it hadn't been for the narrow wall of water separating them.

"I'm not going to say this again," Sam said, and he wasn't yelling any more, but the message got through loud and clear. "I. Am not. Your Sam."

Then, as suddenly as he'd picked him up, he dropped Dean again and took off running across the road, and Dean was surprised enough that he wasted a second just staring, which was long enough for Sam to disappear amongst the trees and for a fucking stream of cars with the worst timing ever to pull between them, so that by the time Dean had finished his little drooling idiot act and made it over the road, Sam was nowhere to be seen. That didn't stop Dean running around the woods yelling like a moron for a while, though (and Jesus, he was really beginning to hate woods, dark, sunny or rainy, they fucked everything up, give him a nice industrial wasteland any day and fuck the beauty of Mother freakin Nature), until finally he had to give up and go back to the car, soaked through, shivering, pissed off, and really fucking scared.

The rain started to ease off after an hour or two, and Dean put on the radio and the heat full blast. Sam would come back. Sam had run away from him what seemed like a hundred times in the last two weeks, and he had always come back (well, OK, there was that one time he had just sprained his ankle and Dean had hauled him back, and probably _falling over_ didn't really count as the same thing as _coming back of your own accord_, but Dean wasn't about to split hairs right now). Sam had nowhere to go, no-one to help him (which was pretty pathetic, but it was a fact on Dean's side right now) and they were in the middle of fucking nowhere, which meant that finding a bar would be a tall order (although Dean figured that if Sam really wanted to, he could find one anyway, which meant that right now he was pretty much putting all his hopes in one basket (or however the hell that stupid saying goes), which was that the detox drugs were doing their job and, more importantly, that Sam felt like he had a reason to stop drinking now. It was a lame basket, especially given the conversation (or argument or fucking out-and-out screaming match or whatever) they'd just had, but Dean didn't have any other baskets right now, and by the way, this metaphor was getting really goddamn overextended). Whatever, the point was that Sam was pretty much guaranteed to come back. Of course, that didn't stop Dean from counting the goddamn seconds until he did.

Approximately nine thousand, two hundred and forty-five seconds later, the passenger door opened and Sam dropped into the seat.

Dean unclenched his fists carefully, counted to ten, and then looked over. Sam looked OK. Wet and dripping, but not beaten up, tired but not wasted (though Dean was all too aware of the fact that this Sam was pretty goddamn good at hiding his wastedness). "You OK?"

Sam nodded, closed his eyes for a moment, and then said, "Let's go."

Dean pulled out into the dying storm.

----

It was about an hour later when Dean reached out and turned the radio off. "So tell me," he said.

Sam looked round from where he had been staring out of the window. "Tell you what?"

"Tell me what it is you've always wanted," Dean said. So far he had fucked this conversation up pretty spectacularly, and he was pretty likely to do it again, too, but he had to have it anyway, no way he could just leave it there, and his current brilliant plan for stopping Sam from running away again involved the single genius step of _not pulling over_. Of course, eventually he was going to run out of gas, but he figured he could always go back to the handcuffs idea (_because that worked so well last time_).

Sam shifted, made a move like he was going to put the radio on again, and then turned suddenly back to the window. Dean waited. It was still at least ten hours to their destination, and he could afford to bide his time.

Finally, Sam cleared his throat. "A family," he said, and Dean almost drove into a fucking tree because that was pretty much the last thing he'd expected. That was what _Dean_ wanted, not Sam. Sam wanted success, a career, normality. Sam had turned his back on his family.

"Jess was all I had, she was all I wanted," Sam continued. "I can't go back to that life, not with what I know now."

_Great_, thought Dean, because when Sam said _not with what I know now_, Dean heard _not with what you told me_. Yeah, once again, Dean Winchester had managed to royally screw things up.

"You could still have that," Dean said, but it sounded lame, it sounded like _there's plenty more fish in the sea_, which was the last thing that Dean wanted to say.

"You think?" Sam asked, still staring out at the landscape that was now darkening for real. "This demon, you say it killed my mom, my brother, my dad and my girlfriend. You think I can really start again like it doesn't even exist?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "It's not your fault, Sam."

"It doesn't matter whether it's my fault or not," Sam said. "The point is, I have to stop it. I have to try."

"But you're not ready for this. Fighting this stuff... you need to be trained, you need to know what you're doing, or you'll get yourself killed."

"Then I'll learn," Sam said, and he was facing front now, staring out at the road ahead, his jaw set.

Dean felt his hands tighten on the wheel. "Sam," he said, "I've seen what happens when you let revenge take over your life." Even saying the words felt like a betrayal of Dad, but Dean was rapidly running out of cards to play.

"Yeah," said Sam, "and I've seen what happens when you don't even have that much to keep you afloat."

Dean had no answer to that, and so all he could do was drive on into the growing twilight.


	12. Chapter 12

Supernatural? Not mine.

Many thanks to red121, Left Hook, the Cat's Whiskers, mtee1958, feline666, SpectralScribe, PissedOffEskimo, PadfootObsessed329, Nana56, SilverKitsune1, sugarquill4ron, carocali, Liz Bach, sasha2002, MistyEyes, roxy071288 and bally2cute for taking the time to write such kind reviews. Seriously, you are all so lovely. I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint! (Although I think one or two of you might be a little disappointed with a certain aspect...)

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**But for the Grace, Chapter Twelve**

They had to get off the road, because Dean had been driving for sixteen hours straight and his ribs were really freakin killing him, plus he'd had about as much sleep as a freakin college student on speed and Red Bull in the last few days and he was starting to see weird shit at the edges of his vision (and some of it was _creepy_, like freakin bunny rabbits, what the hell were _they_ doing in his subconscious?). Of course, there was always the option of letting Sam drive, since he was currently in better shape than Dean (and that was pretty terrifying, given the crappy shape Sam was in), but then there was the whole thing about Sam being on drugs, not to mention the visions.

Yeah, let's not mention the visions. Sam hadn't had one since the previous evening in the motel, and Dean was beginning to feel panic thrumming in his fingertips again. It was weird, because normally he _hated_ the visions and would have done pretty much anything to get them to just fuck right off and leave Sam (leave them _both_) alone, but the fact that the last one Sam'd had involved Sam (the _other_ Sam, Jeez, maybe he should come up with names for them, like Pinky and Perky or something, except neither of them was really very perky) being abducted from a mental asylum by demons, and that they didn't know for sure yet whether they'd managed to stop that shit from happening, meant that every minute that went by made Dean more nervous. Sam had had a vision every day since the first one at Jim's; if he didn't have one today, Dean had a terrible feeling that it would mean more than just a welcome break from the old routine.

So it was lucky, Dean supposed (he had the feeling that if he looked in the dictionary under _lucky_ he'd find his definition of it had been thrown seriously out of whack recently), when he heard Sam grunt behind him as he unlocked the door of the motel room they'd just checked into, and turned around to see his brother in a heap on the asphalt, his arms wrapped protectively around his head. Dean squatted down instantly, not that there was much he could do but he kind of felt like if he _didn't_ sit helplessly as close to Sam as possible, if, say, he sat helplessly on the other side of the room, then that would be admitting defeat, and OK, maybe that was lame, but Dean was not an admit-defeat kind of guy.

Sam came out of it gasping and trembling, but the first thing he did was grab Dean's arm and say _it's OK, Dean. It's OK. Sam's still in the hospital._

Dean sat back on his heels and allowed himself the luxury of a single moment of falling apart. Sam's definition of _OK_ was about as fucked-up as Dean's definition of _lucky_, but that was all right, because they were brothers and they were supposed to have _some_ shit in common, and maybe it wasn't _OK_ OK, but they had bought themselves some time at least. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, cleared his throat, and clambered to his feet. "Come on," he said. "Let's get inside before it starts fucking raining again."

----

Dean was tired. No, Dean wasn't tired, Dean was freakin _exhausted_, Dean felt like he'd spent the last week carrying a freakin elephant up Mount Everest while whistling the entirety of _Wish You Were Here_ (including all the guitar solos); there was one little problem, though, and that was that Dean couldn't get to sleep. No matter how much he tossed and turned, sighed and groaned, threw the blanket off and pulled it back on, sleep just fucking flipped him the bird and flounced off in the other direction, which was pretty much typical. It was thinking that was the problem, Dean decided, definitely thinking. Thoughts were chasing each other round in his head like they were on freakin coke or something (and the idea of his thoughts personified as red-nosed, wild-eyed minor celebrities was at least amusing enough to distract Dean for a moment, but sadly no longer), and he understood now why Sam always had trouble sleeping, because that guy had about ten times as many thoughts as a normal person.

Of course, right now Sam was snoring away peacefully in the next bed (and what that said about how much mental activity was going on in _his_ head was something Dean might have bothered to try and construct a joke out of if he hadn't been so freakin _tired_), and meanwhile, _thoughts_ of Sam were having a goddamn party in Dean's brain. They would get to California the next day, and maybe even in as few as twenty-four hours Dean might be back in his own reality, which was freakin great, wonderful, fantastic, except that it was also the worst goddamn idea that Dean had ever heard. And as far as Dean could tell, there wasn't a way out; OK, so his Sam seemed to be staying put for now, but who the hell knew how long that would last? And in the meantime, was he insane? How long would he be able to cope with constant visions before his mind disintegrated (if it hadn't done so already, but Dean was _so_ not going there)? No, there was definitely no alternative but to get back there.

Which meant that he had to leave Sam.

Jesus Christ, how had this _happened_? All his life, Dean had known his first duty was to protect Sam, more important than anything else – Dad had told him that practically every freakin day, for Christ's sake, and OK, technically Dad was _dead_ right now, at least in this dimension, but that didn't change a freakin thing. Sam was Dean's responsibility, and now Dean had seen just how fucked up his brother's life had become when he hadn't taken on that responsibility, he felt it all the more. So yeah, Dean had had one overriding order all his life, and, while it had sometimes (OK, a lot of the time) been a major pain in the ass (because seriously, how was it possible for one skinny little geek to get himself into trouble that often between school and the library?), it had made life simple, at least. Except now, there were two of them, and the only way that Dean would be able to keep an eye on them both would be to have them in the same place, which was...

Which was.

Wait.

Dean stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, wondering why the hell he hadn't thought of it before. He had transferred realities, and apart from a splitting headache and a series of not-so-hilarious adventures with a fucked-up little brother, he'd been fine. He'd been _fine._

If he could do it, why couldn't Sam?

He chewed his lip, trying to imagine the two Sams in one place. Jesus Christ, it was a terrifying thought. No library would ever be safe again. Plus, he'd have to put up with twice the amount of bitching and moaning (and this Sam would probably teach his Sam about the effective use of sarcasm, which would really fuck up Dean's carefully-honed dynamic). Then he tried to imagine what would happen if he left this Sam behind.

Moments later, he was standing outside the motel room door, dialling Jim's number.

----

Morning broke slow and sulky, like the sun was pissed at having to get up so early or some such shit, but Dean felt better than he had in days. OK, so, yeah, his ribs still hurt like it was freakin going out of style, and his head felt kind of thick and woolly, and he _still _only had one boot (Jeez, they had to get around to stopping to buy him a new pair sometime, because driving barefoot was all very well, but sooner or later someone was going to mistake him for a hippy freak, and that someone was going to be very, _very_ sorry), but he'd thought of a way to help this Sam, and that was the best news he'd had pretty much since he'd woken up in a motel room in Springfield and found his brother (and his car) gone.

Sam was already up, checking something out on the laptop, and he glanced over as Dean stirred and groaned.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty," he said, and Dean gave him the finger.

"You take your pills?" he asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Yeah," Sam replied absently. "Why, you wanna share? Cos I gotta tell ya, Deano, if you think detox drugs are a fun way to spend a Saturday night then you've been doing it wrong, man."

Dean frowned. "It's Dean," he growled.

"Yeah, whatever," Sam said with a grin.

"Listen, _Sammy_," Dean said, "you don't seem to have got the hang of this whole banter thing we got going. _I'm _the funny one, you're the geek, geek."

Sam's grin broadened slightly. "You just keep telling yourself that, Deano," he breezed, and Dean almost reconsidered his plan. Almost.

Instead, he struggled out of bed and headed for the shower, throwing Sam a dirty look on the way. Sam wasn't even paying attention, which was just fucking typical.

----

When Dean got out of the shower, Sam had closed down the laptop, and was waiting, fingers tapping out a goddamn fandango on the tabletop, looking kind of like he was expecting to be taken out for walkies or whatever, the puppy-faced freak. "So?" he said.

"So?" asked Dean, finding himself a step behind as freakin usual.

"You're acting weird," Sam said.

"Jesus Christ," Dean muttered, "all I did was take a freakin shower."

"Exactly," Sam said, and he sounded like he'd just invented the goddamn distortion pedal or something.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Dean pulled his shirt on and tried to ignore the sharp pain from his ribs. He probably ought to get them looked at; whatever, there would be time when he was back where he was supposed to be.

"Just..." Sam shrugged, "you don't seem to be in a hurry, is all. Which is weird, for you."

Dean thought about that. It wasn't that he wasn't in a _hurry_, because, God knew, he still felt the urgency of needing to help his Sam throbbing in his veins right up to the roots of his hair, but Sam was right, he was stalling, and that was pretty weird, considering that all he had to do was _tell_ Sam and then they could get going and this whole thing would be _over_ finally and Dean could sleep for a week (except that with two goddamn Sams around he'd be lucky to be able to close his eyes for five minutes). So how come he hadn't just spat it out as soon as he woke up? He looked across at Sam, Sam who still didn't look that healthy, face shadowed with fading bruises, too thin, too pale, too hard. _What if_.

_What if he says no?_

Dean shook himself. _Don't be a freakin moron. Just tell him._ He opened his mouth, and the words came out before he'd really thought of how to put them together, all tangled up and rushed, and wasn't that just freakin _typical_, because Dean always had all the right words when he was charming a hot chick out of her pants, but he was about as eloquent as a freakin orang-utan when it really counted. Not that that really mattered, though, not that any of it really mattered when Sam stared at him like he'd just suggested they book a holiday at a concentration camp and then shook his head, and Dean felt his nervousness mutate into full-on fear, and yeah, OK, if there was a tidy pinch of anger mixed in that was no real surprise, right? Because Sam was. Sam was.

Sam was being an _asshole_.

"What the hell do you mean, _you can't_?" Dean growled, straightening up to his full height, and towering over Sam, who was still sitting at the table, his fingers still now. "Jesus, Sam, you really do have a freakin death wish, don't you?"

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Dean wished, _wished_ so damn hard that he'd never said them, never even thought them, because the idea that Sam was going to _die_ if Dean left him carved horrible gouges in the wall of his stomach. Sam, though, was looking away, his face kind of blank (which didn't mean anything, because this Sam was always hiding, always trying to hide), and he said, "Dean, listen, the prophecy--"

"Damn it, Sam, do _not_ say another word to me about that goddamn prophecy," Dean started, but then suddenly Sam was standing up too, and now it was his turn to do the towering, the gigantic bastard, and the look on his face made the breath die in Dean's throat.

"Jesus _Christ_, Dean, why don't you ever _listen_?" he said, and he sounded like he was spitting bullets. "I know you think I don't know anything, that I'm just a helpless kid, but would you take a look at yourself, for once? You have _no_ idea what you're doing, you don't know who sent you here and why, you sure as hell don't have a clue how to save your brother, and _I do_, I think I _know_, but you just won't _listen_ to me. Why won't you _listen_?"

Dean took a step back, stunned by the force of Sam's outburst. He listened to Sam, though, right? He _did_. It was just that, a lot of the time, Sam said stuff that was stupid or didn't make sense or was just plain _crazy_, and there was no point listening to that shit, right? Sam didn't know what he was talking about half the time, because he wasn't really _Sam_, he didn't know about the stuff in the dark, and...

...OK, so maybe he didn't listen to Sam that much. At any rate, he was going to listen now, because Sam's face was set in bitter lines and his fists were clenched—in frustration or anger, Dean couldn't tell—and Dean may have been kind of insensitive or whatever sometimes, but he knew when it was time to sit down and shut up. He sank onto the bed.

"OK, Sam," he said. "OK. I'm listening."

Sam looked startled for just a second, then wary, and then blank again. He sat down himself, stiff-backed, his fingers tapping again in some rhythm that Dean couldn't quite get the hang of but that made the base of his spine itch.

"I've been thinking," he said finally, and his eyes flicked for a moment to Dean's, and Dean bit his tongue to stop any smartass remarks coming out, because Sam needed him to listen, and goddamn he was going to do that. Sam waited just a moment longer, then seemed to relax slightly, and said, "OK, so, like I said yesterday, the prophecy talks about 'tools' in human form that can destroy demons and that demons will want to control, right?"

"Right," Dean said warily, because he _really_ did not want to deal with this prophecy shit again, but he'd said he would listen and now he'd have to be a pretty big asshole to back out.

"OK, now, it talks about one of these tools in particular, a sword, that will eventually be the demons' bane," Sam said, and after a moment added, "That means it'll kill them."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Professor," he said, but that was all.

"Now, the _reason_ that the prophecy gives for the demons being unable to control this sword is that it's protected by a shield, which presumably is another one of the tools," Sam continued, his fingers redoubling their tapping, "and I think maybe... maybe that's you. Maybe I'm the sword and you're the shield."

Dean let his breath out in an explosive burst of air. "You said that yesterday, Sam," he pointed out, trying to sound reasonable, trying not to let the nervousness he felt in his belly edge his voice with anger. "You got any more evidence now than you did then?"

"Dean, we _know_ that what's happening to your Sam has something to do with demons," Sam said. "We know he's having constant visions, and we know that's not normal for him, for _us_. You think it's a coincidence that that would happen to him pretty much immediately after you were removed from his reality?"

Dean stared. He'd thought about why Sam was having so many visions, of course, but he'd pretty much drawn a blank, especially given how little he had to go on and how little time he'd had to think what with all the other shit that was going on. "You think... What, you think he's having visions because I'm not there?"

Sam paused before answering. "Maybe. Maybe whoever or whatever is giving the visions to Sam sent you away to make it easier, maybe this is just what his power is naturally like and it would have happened years ago if you hadn't been around, maybe someone's just taking advantage of the fact that you're gone, but I find it pretty difficult to believe that there's no connection at all."

Dean tried to think, but God, it was all so fucking confusing. Zombies and ghosts and freakin hellhounds were one thing, but _this_, prophecies and destiny and the end of the world and crazy superpowers, this was fantasy territory and to be honest, it sounded totally ridiculous, like some guy in chainmail was going to burst through the door any minute and challenge them to a freakin joust or whatever. "So, what, the demons are trying to control Sam by giving him visions?"

"I don't know for sure, I don't know anything for sure," Sam said, "but... maybe they're trying to weaken his mind, or brainwash him, or something. At any rate, they're very interested in him right now, and there's got to be a reason for it."

_Yeah, there's always gotta be a reason with you, doesn't there?_ Dean thought. He closed his eyes, digging the heels of his palms into his eye-sockets and wishing he'd at least had time for coffee before this craziness. "Why didn't the demon just kill me, then, if I'm so freakin important?" he said. "He coulda killed me a hundred times, hell, he coulda killed me when I was four freakin years old." _Technically he did, here at least_.

Sam shook his head. "Listen," he said, and pulled the book out of his pocket. "'The tools are immortal but they are poured into mortal shape.' You see?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "You wanna translate for me there, college boy?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "It goes on to say, 'The sword and shield are immortal; they cannot be destroyed, though their mortal forms be damaged beyond repair.'"

"So you're saying I can't die?" Dean asked, and that _definitely_ sounded ridiculous, because even though Dean was obviously far too pretty to die, there were still the basic laws of physics or whatever to be taken into account.

"No, _you_ can die, obviously, but whatever... essence you have inside you is immortal. So killing you wouldn't do any good. That's why they had to get you out of the picture entirely."

"Essence," snorted Dean. "Dude, the only _essence_ I want inside me is... never mind," he finished, after catching a glimpse of the frustration on Sam's face. "OK, OK, I'm paying attention. You really believe all this cr... stuff?"

Sam sighed. "I don't know," he said. "The prophecy's thousands of years old, it could refer to anything. But... it fits."

"Right." Not that it made any difference anyway, whether Dean was a freakin shield or just Dean, since it was his job to look after Sam whatever, and... wait a minute... "That still doesn't explain why you can't come back with me."

Sam looked up, as if he'd forgotten all about that part of the conversation in his excitement over the prophecy. Geek. "Wait, isn't it obvious?"

Dean shrugged. "No. I mean, you'd still be with me, right? So you'd be OK."

Sam shook his head. "Dean, you're not my brother. I mean, yeah, genetically you are, but this isn't _science_. We have no idea whether whatever power you have would be enough to protect two people, or even if it would recognise me at all. If all this is true, you're supposed to protect your Sam Winchester, not me."

"Hey," Dean said, "you're not going nuts right now, are you? I mean, I'm protecting you OK now?"

"I don't... think you're the one who's protecting me now," Sam said, very quietly, and Dean remembered the words of the prophecy, _they cannot be destroyed, though their mortal forms be damaged beyond repair_, and felt the hairs stand up on the backs of his arms, as if his dead four-year-old self was standing _right behind him_ (and Jesus Christ, that would be creepy as hell, dead little kids are always the worst, even when they're not, you know, _you_).

"OK," he said, thinking as fast as he could, trying to assimilate all this new information and to ignore the part of his brain that just wanted to pretend he'd never heard it, "OK. But really, how likely is it that you're right about this, huh? I mean, like you said, it could be anything."

Sam looked down and his fingers stilled. "I don't know, Dean. For all I know I could just be a crazy drop-out with an imaginary brother and delusions of grandeur. But are you willing to risk it?"

There was no way that Dean could think of to answer that question, and so he didn't say anything.

"Anyway," Sam continued, "that's not the only reason I can't go with you."

"Oh please God," Dean groaned, "don't tell me there's _more_? What the hell other reason could you have for wanting to stay in this shithole reality?"

Sam's motuh twitched, his fingers started with the _goddamn _tapping again, and Dean was manfully resisting the urge to wring his neck when Sam said, "Because it's mine."

"What?" Dean felt his leg begin to bounce in time with Sam's tapping.

"It's my reality, Dean. It's my _life_. I've got to see it through."

"But..." Dean stared, trying to work out what exactly it was that Sam was saying, "it's totally fucked up."

"I know that. Don't you think I know that?" Sam looked away, looked down at his hand, out the window, anywhere but Dean, and then he _did_ look and Dean kind of wished he hadn't. "I was born here, Dean, for better or worse, this is where I belong. I've got to see it through."

Dean wanted to say _don't be an idiot_ or _for God's sake, Sam_ or _well, forget it, because you're coming with me_, but what he actually said was, "I don't understand."

Sam smiled, and it was a real smile, even if it was kind of sad. "I know," he said. "That's OK." And then he stood up, picking up the laptop and the bag that contained everything the two of them had acquired since Dean had driven them out of Palo Alto (which consisted of a couple of changes of clothes, the guns and knives Dean had borrowed from Jim, the jars of bat's blood and assorted herbs, and Sam's books, and when Dean catalogued it like that in his mind he thought that maybe, _maybe_ his life had some kind of weird priorities) and headed for the door. When he got there, though, and while Dean was still in the process of looking for his boots and remembering he only had one (_Jesus, it was fucking ridiculous_), he turned and sort of half-smiled and said, "I know you have to go back, and it's OK. It means a lot that you want to take me with you, Dean."

And he was out of the door before Dean could think of anything to say, so fast in fact that later Dean would wonder if he'd imagined the whole thing (except he knew he hadn't, because if he'd been busy having daydreams, they would _not_ have been about Sam being fucking _sappy_). Dean stared after him, then sighed and started putting on his boot.

----

They crossed the state line into California around three, and Dean figured they were still about four hours away from their goal. Sam had been quiet most of the way, alternately reading the prophecy book and his Latin stuff, but his feet and hands kept up a constant drumming that was _so_ not in time with Led Zep, and it was driving Dean freakin insane. Not that Sam noticed the dirty looks Dean was shooting him—apparently, Sumerians were _way_ more interesting than Dean had realised (yeah, right). He did notice the gigantic _Welcome to California_ sign, though, and he straightened in his seat, put the book down and said, "We'll be there soon."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

Sam glanced over, looking kind of surprised by Dean's tone, but Dean wasn't about to cut him any slack, because maybe his reasons for wanting to stay were kind of sensible (_maybe_), but it didn't change the fact that Dean was stuck with the same dilemma he'd had yesterday (and every day for too long now), and that made him nervous and angry and guilty all at once and Sam just _would not stop tapping_.

"Jesus," said Sam. "What the hell's your problem?"

Dean ignored him.

After a moment or two, Sam rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Feel free to sulk all you want. Tell me what the plan is for when we get there."

Dean shrugged (oh, and by the way, he was _so_ not sulking). "I go in, I do the funky spell thing, I go home." _Yeah, cos it's really that simple._

Sam stared. "That's your plan? Jesus, I thought this kind of thing was meant to be your job or something."

Dean heard himself make a growling noise low in his throat. "You got something to say, say it."

"Right, so you're gonna walk into a private mental institution and say, _Oh, hey, I wondered if you guys would mind if I did some witchcraft in here, only my brother's going nuts in another dimension, see, and I gotta get back to him_? That's utterly lame."

Yeah, OK, when Sam put it like _that_ it did sound kinda... underdeveloped, as plans go. But goddamn, Dean was _tired_, and he didn't know what to do, and all he knew was that soon he was going to have to make his choice, and it was going to be forever. "OK, college boy," he said, "you're so goddamn smart, what do you think we should do?"

He shouldn't have asked, he thought afterwards. He should never have asked, because he should have _known_ Sam had been thinking about it, and it seemed like letting Sam think about shit was never a good thing, because he always seemed to come up with ideas that made Dean want to punch someone out.

"OK," he said now (and even the tone of his voice set Dean right on the path to realising that asking Sam what he thought had been about as great an idea as standing in front of a crazed zombie and shouting _boo_), "so the spell's a two-man job, and it takes time. We want to be as close to where your Sam is as possible, which means preferably we have to find the right room. There's no way we can do it during the day, because we'll be too conspicuous, but at night all the rooms will be locked, and it'll be pretty difficult to find the right one. That means we have to get inside during the day to do recon, and then again at night to do the actual spell."

Dean opened his mouth to ask how the hell Sam knew so much about how nuthouses worked, then snapped it shut again as he remembered why that was a _dumb_ question. Sam didn't seem to notice.

"When I was... In my _experience_," he said, looking out of the window now, "the only people allowed on a closed ward during the day are doctors and orderlies, patients, and patients' visitors."

"OK," said Dean, "we can be doctors. I've done it before, nothing to it."

"No," Sam shook his head, "this isn't some two-bit rural clinic, Dean. If you go in there with fake ID and a made-up name, they're gonna check your credentials, and then they're gonna call the police and you'll have lost any chance you ever had of getting in there."

"OK, so, what?" Dean was getting kind of frustrated now. "You're telling me there's no way of getting round this? Because I gotta tell you, Sam, that's not exactly what I'm looking for in the way of plans right now."

"No," Sam said slowly, and his lips tightened, the line of his jaw tensing. "We can do it. We just need a patient."

Dean snorted. "Right. So we just roll on up there and pretend to be crazy, right?" And then he stopped and glanced sideways. Sam had stopped tapping. "Oh no," Dean said. "No way, Sam."

"Why not?" Sam asked, and laughed, goddamn, Dean was _so sick_ of that laugh. "It's not like I'd have to do much acting."

"Yeah, well, too bad. I'm pretty sure I can be crazy as you if I put my mind to it."

"Maybe," Sam said, "but you don't know what the room looks like, you don't have any legit insurance or medical records, and your social security number belongs to a dead person. This is a private hospital, Dean, they don't just take people off the street. My scholarship covers the insurance, I've got the records, I've got the _history_. It's the only way to be sure we'll find out what we need."

"Maybe, maybe not," Dean said, "but there is _no way_ we're doing this, you got me? I'm not arguing about this any more, Sam. We're finding another plan."

"For fuck's sake, why is it that you get to make all the decisions?" Sam growled. "Christ, Dean, who died and made you God?"

Dean clenched his jaw and concentrated on driving, feeling his grip on the steering wheel increase to the point where it actually hurt. Sam didn't get it, of course Sam didn't get it, Sam didn't _know_, and the goddamn nuthatch was getting closer and closer and Dean was running out of time, running out of time to make Sam understand. There was only one thing he could think of to do. And it was going to hurt like a freakin motherfucker.

"Sam," he said, "when you were a baby, when Mom died... I carried you out of the fire. I was only four, and Dad told me to take you, and ever since... Even before... It's been my job to make sure you're OK, you get me? Sometimes you screw up and I have get you out of the mess you've made, sometimes I screw up and I have to get you out of the mess _I've_ made, but I always get you out, because that's what I do. And now... I've made this gigantic mess of your life, and you just want me to walk you into a freakin nuthouse and abandon you there? Because I can't do that, Sam, I won't."

Sam was silent, and Dean didn't look at him, keeping his eyes fixed on the road, his fingers clenched around the steering wheel, feeling like if he let go, if he looked at Sam, he was going to fall apart, and that would be _just_ what they needed. Finally, he heard Sam give a frustrated sigh.

"Jesus Christ, you're an idiot," he said. "I have no idea how your Sam managed to put up with you for twenty-three years."

Dean let out a bark of laughter. OK, he hadn't expected _that_. "Great, Sam, why don't you tell me how you really feel?"

Sam was tapping again. "Listen, man, do you know what I was doing just before I met you?"

Dean thought back to that night in Palo Alto, back when he'd still thought that this whole mess would be fixable with a short, bitter argument and an apology or two. "Drinking and fighting," he said.

"That's right," Sam said. "I was totally wasted and taking a beating from this random guy I met in the bar. And you know what? I don't even blame him, because I started the goddamn fight. I hadn't been sober for weeks. Do you understand what I mean?" Dean shrugged, not really wanting to hear this, but not sure what to say to stop it. "I mean I hadn't had a single minute when my head was completely clear and there was no alcohol at all in my bloodstream for weeks, Dean. _Weeks_. And now, look at me. I haven't had a drink in three days."

Dean snorted. "It's gonna take a lot more than three days sober to fix this," he said.

"God, don't you think I _know_ that? Jesus, you have no idea what it's like. Sometimes, I want to ditch you and go and find a bar more than I want to _breathe_." Sam's tapping had intensified now, and Dean started to think that maybe there was something behind it other than Sam being a pain in the ass.

"I gotta say, you're not exactly helping your case, here," he pointed out.

Sam made an exasperated noise. "You don't get it, do you? I _could_ have. I could have got that drink any time, and you couldn't have stopped me, not really. But you didn't need to, because you gave me something else to help me stop."

"Oh yeah?" Dean challenged, staring so hard at the road ahead that he thought maybe it might just melt under the power of his gaze (except Sam was the one with the freakish powers, and they generally weren't nearly as cool as heat-vision, which, if Dean was honest about it, had always kind of disappointed him). "What's that?"

"You gave me a _reason_ to stop," Sam said. "You gave me a reason, Dean."

"Right, I gave you a freakin revenge quest," Dean said, pressing down slightly harder on the gas.

"Maybe some of it's about revenge," Sam admitted, "but not all of it. God, I have no idea if I'm meant to save the world from this goddamn demon or whatever, but at least now I can _try_, at least now I can _do_ something. Jesus, if you'd asked me two weeks ago if I would go back to hospital to save a life, even my own life, I'd've said no goddamn way. I was drowning, and now I'm not. So if you think that saving me is your job, Dean, then you can relax, because you already have."

Dean felt the back of his throat burning; Jesus, maybe Sam was right, maybe he really _was_ turning into a girl. He wanted to believe it, wanted to believe that he'd done enough, that Sam would be able to do the rest now, but he wasn't sure he could. "But what about when I'm gone, huh?" he said, ignoring the roughness in his voice. "What are you gonna to do then?"

Sam turned to look at him then, and although Dean still had his eyes fixed on the road, he could feel Sam's stare like it was a physical object. "I'm going to get some help, Dean," he said quietly. "I'm going to get some help, and then I'm going to kick that son-of-a-bitch's ass."

----

In the end, it was a vision that finally convinced Dean that Sam's plan was the only option. Thankfully, Sam was already lying on the bed when it happened, but it was freakin long, and it looked pretty goddamn painful, and Sam came out of it with his chest heaving and his eyes wide, rolling over to throw up in the trash can before Dean even had a chance to put a hand on his back.

"God," he said, panting, head hanging over the side of the bed, hair stuck to the nape of his neck with sweat. "God, I don't think I can take much more of this."

Dean sat on the edge of the bed and felt useless, and he didn't ask, but Sam knew anyway, and said, "It's getting worse, Dean. You need to get him out of there. Fast."

_Yeah_, thought Dean, _everything's always got to be fast._

In the morning, they made their preparations. Sam called Jim, and then went into town to talk to a lawyer and sign some papers. He was back by eleven, and he called Jim again; Dean sat in the room and listened to Sam's half of the conversation, and at some point he jumped to his feet and grabbed the phone from his brother's hand.

"Jim," he said.

"Dean." Jim's voice was crackly on the line. "What can I help you with?"

"Jim, I swear to God, if you let my brother down I will find out and I will find a way to come back here and kick your ass, priest or no priest."

There was a startled silence, and then Jim chuckled. "Well, I'll just have to be sure and not let him down, then, won't I?"

After that, there was an hour or so during which Dean taught Sam how to pick locks (which was pretty dumb, since Sam had pretty much always been better at it than Dean, his fingers long and nimble where Dean's where strong and forceful), and then they were ready to go. It was a short drive to the other side of town, and when they pulled up in front of the hospital, Dean couldn't suppress a shudder. The thing looked even more like a freakin haunted asylum in real life. Dean half expected bats to come flying out of the eaves any second (and actually, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, because they could always do with more bat's blood – OK, _that_ was not a thought Dean had ever imagined himself having). "Jesus, welcome to the freakin Bates Motel," he muttered, and turned to Sam.

Sam was staring up at the building too, his spine stiff, his leg jerking. His mask of indifference had slipped entirely, and suddenly he looked like _Sam_, maybe more so than at any time since Dean had woken up in this reality, scared and nervous and about six years old.

"Hey," said Dean. "You don't have to do this, you know."

Sam turned to look at him, and in an instant the mask was back, though a muscle still twitched in his jaw. "It's OK," he said. "I... I want to."

_Yeah, you're just desperate to get in there, aren't you?_ Dean thought, but all he said was, "OK, then, you ready?"

Sam swallowed and closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened them and met Dean's gaze calmly. "Yeah," he said. "Let's go."


	13. Chapter 13

Supernatural is not mine.

Holy crap, you guys, I actually finished it! Many thanks to everyone who's stuck with me thus far, and especially to those who've been generous enough to let me know what they think. Especial thanks in this chapter go out to sugarquill4ron, November'sGuest, SilverKitsune1, Ash8, ToritheReviewer, bally2cute, sasha2002, Ashti, carocali, Harrigan, JazzyIrish, MistyEyes, Nana56, PissedOffEskimo, PadfootObsessed329, Onari, mtee1958, Liz Bach and Mellaithwen. You guys rule! Hope you enjoy the end of the story.

----

**But for the Grace, Chapter Thirteen**

Hospitals sucked.

OK, so everyone thought that, no-one ever wanted to go to a hospital, not even the freakin doctors and nurses or orderlies or whatever that worked there, because hospitals were full of sick people and if you were there, it not only meant that either you were sick or someone you knew was, but it also seriously increased your chances of catching something _else_, not to mention being thrown up on (and _Jesus_, this was a psych hospital which meant the chances of having to deal with crazy people were higher than they usually were even in Dean's line of work), and let's not forget, being patronised.

Yeah, definitely let's not forget being patronised, because if the woman behind the goddamn reception desk didn't stop with it pretty soon Dean was going to tell her exactly where she could stick her perfect smile (Jesus, she was one of _them_, one of the zombies from the goddamn rehab leaflet, Christ they were fucking _following_ him now), and he was pretty sure that would get him thrown out, and he wouldn't be much use to Sam then.

"No, _Winchester_," Sam was saying, leaning over the desk. "With a _W_. Yeah."

"I see," the woman said, and her cheeks must have been aching like they'd been for a ten-mile run, she was smiling so goddamn hard. "Now, Mr. Winchester, what makes you think you need to check in here?"

Dean shifted his weight to his back foot, but Sam just straightened up and smiled in that bitter way that made Dean want to put his fist through a wall and said, "I'm crazy. Why else would anyone want to check in here?"

Dean snorted. _Ha_. Bitch hadn't expected that. And it was true, her smile faltered slightly, and then shifted into a more brittle register. "We don't--" she started, but Sam cut her off.

"Here," he said, handing her a slip of paper. "These are my insurance details and the name and number of my doctor in Nebraska. Have your people give him a call." She stared, and Sam raised his eyebrows at her. "We'll wait over there," he said, gesturing at a screened-off area with a few armchairs and a stack of magazines.

Dean followed Sam to the waiting room or whatever the hell it was (not really a _room_ as such, more like a... what did you call a screened-off area inside a bigger room, anyway? There had to be a name for it, right? More importantly, why the fuck was Dean getting so worked up about it when his brother was about to be _committed_, for Christ's sake, and maybe that was why, maybe it was because if Dean thought about some dumb shit then he wouldn't have to think about what was actually going on, because Sam said it was OK, he said he would be OK, but that didn't change the fact that he was scared as hell, Dean could tell even if no-one else would be able to, the muscles clenching in his back and his fingers fluttering and fidgeting in his lap and oh _yeah_, Sam was terrified) and slumped into a chair that was definitely less comfortable than it looked. He thought about saying something, asking Sam if he was OK or whatever, but that would be a freakin joke, because Sam would either say _yeah I'm fine_, which would be a lie, or _fuck, no, I'm not OK_, which would be true but there would still be nothing they could do about it. So Dean just sat and opened the first magazine that came to hand, staring at it without seeing it for at least a minute before he registered Sam's smirk and realised he was holding a copy of _Cosmopolitan_ open at an article about how best to please your man in bed.

"Something you're not telling me?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Research, Sam," Dean breezed. "Finding out how the female mind works is the best way to getting hands-on experience in how the female body works, you know?" Yeah, that was good, that was a good comeback.

"If you want to know how the female body works, all you've got to do is experiment in the shower," Sam said, and Dean was struck pretty much dumb, because it had been two weeks and Sam had been coming round, being _Sam_, but sometimes still he would come out with shit like this (and his Sam would never have been able to say something like that without blushing, God) and Dean would feel like he'd been punched in the gut with the differences, with what this Sam's life had done to him.

But should he feel that way, really? I mean, what Sam had said was the sort of thing that _Dean_ would say, and that wasn't the end of the world, the fact that this Sam acted a little more like Dean wasn't a national fucking tragedy, right? Except that Dean didn't want Sam to be like him, all wisecracks and distance and never finding the words to say what needed to be said until it was too late. Dean didn't want that for Sam, he'd never wanted it.

Jesus Christ, he _so_ had to get out of his own head. A fucking crack about him reading a chick mag (which he still had open, he realised, and he shut it sharply, because yeah, maybe he wanted to read what it had to say, a little, but there had to be something about cars or some such shit in the pile, right?) had sent him off into an emo mindfuck that would do Sam proud. Maybe he should just pack it in and start listening to indie music and cutting himself. He bet he would look great in eyeliner. (Jesus, where did _that_ come from?)

After some rummaging, Dean managed to find a copy of _Rolling Stone_, but he wasn't much in the mood for reading, and it didn't help that Sam's nervous fidgeting was getting more and more pronounced as time passed. Finally (_finally_) a guy in a white coat appeared in the... whatever the hell the name of the thing they were sitting in was (and _Christ_, it had to have a name, because it was really fucking inconvenient to have to keep thinking of it this way) and said _Sam Winchester?_

Sam stood up, and Dean did too, and the doc looked from one to the other in bemusement.

"I'm Sam," said Sam (which was fair enough).

The doctor smiled and held out his hand. "I'm Doctor Marshall," he said. "This way, please."

Sam followed the doctor, and Dean followed Sam. Marshall frowned. "Usually we like to interview prospective patients alone," he said pointedly.

_Prospective patients_. Jesus, he made it sound like everyone was dying to get in here. Fucking _mental institution_, Jesus _Christ_. Dean felt Sam stiffen beside him, and he met the doctor's stare without flinching.

"Not this time," he said.

----

The doctor's office was pretty damn cushy, if you liked that sort of thing (which Dean didn't), leather chairs and framed certificates on the wall (yeah, that really would have inspired confidence if Dean couldn't've whipped an identical one up in about twenty minutes with a decent printer) and the smell of money. Dean shifted in his chair. He _hated_ the smell of money (unless it was his).

"Sam," the guy – Marshall – leaned forward in his chair in what was probably meant to be a sincere and confidential posture, but really made him look like his stomach hurt, "Doctor Blakefield tells me you were doing well when he discharged you."

_Blakefield_. Dean filed the name away between _James Blunt_ and _Jar Jar Binks_ in the drawer in his head marked 'people whose asses I'm gonna kick if I ever get the chance' (yeah, OK, so Jar Jar Binks was a fictional character, but Dean was in an _alternate dimension_ for Christ's sake, and if that was possible, anything was, and _Jesus_ that guy was a jackass).

"I was," Sam said, "I was doing... OK. But then recently things kind of got worse."

"Worse?" Marshall asked. "How so?"

"I've been... seeing things. People. Well, one person, to be exact," Sam said.

"Really?" Marshall's pen hovered over his clipboard. "Who is this person?"

Samlet out a rush of air that was kind of a laugh. "He says he's my brother." And was that a flick of his eyes in Dean's direction?

"And do you believe him?"

Sam shrugged. "Not at first, because, you know, I'm an only child and all. But lately... Yeah, I think I do."

Marshall wrote something down, his face neutral. Dean sat on his hands to stop himself fidgeting, because he hadn't thought about it, hadn't thought that Sam might talk about _him_ like he was some kind of mental illness. It made sense, because the best way to lie was to tell as much of the truth as possible, but even so, it was _weird_.

"How does he explain where he was when you were growing up?" Marshall asked. "Was he adopted?"

"Actually," Sam said, like it was the most natural fucking thing in the world, and was the little bastard _enjoying_ this? "he's from an alternate dimension."

Marshall's pen paused, and his face twitched.

"Yeah, I know," said Sam, "that's what I thought too. But see, it turns out that actually I _did_ have a brother, only he died in a fire when I was a baby, and Dean, he's from a reality where that didn't happen. You know, like with quantum physics."

Marshall managed to collect himself enough to write something down. He cleared his throat, and actually, _Dean_ was kind of enjoying this now, too. "How often do you see this brother?" he asked.

"Oh, all the time," said Sam. "He never fucking leaves me alone. He's here right now, in fact."

Marshall's eyes flicked around the room, then over to Dean, and Dean stared back and shrugged. It was true, he _was_ there.

"And what does he say to you?" Marshall asked. "Does he tell you to do things?"

Sam laughed. "Not so much _tell_ as _order_. He's a bossy son of a bitch." Dean rolled his eyes, but Sam ignored him, his mouth twitching slightly.

"What kind of things does he want you to do?" the doctor asked.

"Mainly he wants me to help him get back to his reality," Sam said. "See, the version of me that's there is in danger of being kidnapped by demons. Because he's psychic. So mainly he just drags me round the country trying to work out how to do a spell to get him back."

"I see," Marshall said, and Dean wondered if he was writing all this down to mail to network TV as the basis for their next big sci-fi smash. "The alternate version of you is psychic?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "I am, too, actually."

Dean swallowed a snort. His Sam had always wanted to be able to be completely honest with people about who he was, but Dean wasn't sure _this_ was what he had had in mind.

Marshall seemed to think for a bit, and then said, "How do you feel about your brother? Do you get on with him?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Mostly he's a gigantic pain in the ass." Dean cleared his throat loudly and resisted the urge to punch his brother on the arm. Marshall looked at him.

"Do you have something you'd like to add, Mr...?" he said.

Dean straightened up a little in the chair. "Osbourne. And no, I just had a, you know." He gestured at his throat and made harrumphing noises. The doc nodded and turned back to Sam.

"Would you elaborate?"

_Great. Goddamn shrink just asked Sam to _elaborate_ on how I'm a pain in the ass. We're gonna be here all day._

Sam shrugged. "He drags me round with him everywhere, he acts like I'm made of glass, he's always trying to run my life, and he thinks he knows better than me what I want."

Dean sank lower in his seat. _Jesus_, he pretty much wished he'd taken the doctor up on his offer to stay in the waiting... place. This sucked.

"And how does that make you feel?" the doc asked.

"Annoyed. Frustrated." Sam shot Dean a glance, then looked away. "Safe," he said.

----

"Dude, this place is swanky," Dean said, bouncing on the bed. "You get a cell all to yourself and everything."

Sam rolled his eyes. They'd given him a cream t-shirt and sweatpants to wear, and taken away his shoes (which meant, at least, that they were on an even footing now, even if Dean had got a few funny looks for wandering around bare-foot), and he looked kind of fragile. _He acts like I'm made of glass_, that's what Sam had said, and yeah, OK, maybe it was true, but Dean wouldn't do it if Sam didn't _break_ quite so freakin often.

"So this isn't the room Sam's in, then?" Dean asked, examining the door lock. It looked pretty simple.

"No, his room faces the other direction," Sam replied.

"Well then, let's go on a tour," Dean said.

"Dean, they're not going to let you wander round here like you own the place," Sam said. "I'm the crazy one, remember?"

Dean frowned, because the last thing he needed was these idiots convincing Sam that he was delusional again. "Sam, we've been through this. You're not crazy."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I _know _that. In the _context_ of this insane plan, _I_ am the crazy one, OK? I'll check it out later, when I get a chance."

Dean was about to argue (just for the sake of it, really, because he knew Sam was right, but something had lifted since their conversation the previous day, something dark between them was gone, and it felt _good_ to argue about stupid shit again) when a middle-aged woman came in and said "Sam, we need you for an evaluation." She looked at Dean. "Sam's going to be busy for the rest of the day, settling in. You can come back and visit him in the morning, if you want."

"Yeah, OK, I know when I'm not wanted," Dean said, even though a thrill of nervousness skittered up his spine at the thought of leaving Sam alone in this place. "You got everything?"

Sam nodded. "I'll be OK."

_Yeah, I've heard that one before_, thought Dean (and seriously, he had, people always said _I'm OK_ just before offing themselves or getting their heads blown off or getting ripped to shreds by freakin zombies, and OK, maybe that was only in the movies and maybe it was pretty unlikely that any of those things were going to happen to Sam in here (well, except the zombie thing, because there was still the reception-desk chick to worry about), but it never hurt to be too careful). "OK, well, make me a macaroni picture, OK?"

Sam scowled. "Fuck you, asshole," he said, but something about the way he said it made Dean grin like an idiot.

----

Dean sat in the Impala across the street from what he'd come to think of as the Fucking Lunatic Asylum (OK, not that original a name, but Dean wasn't exactly at his best right now) and waited. He'd been waiting pretty much since he'd left the goddamn place that afternoon, and now it was dark and he was _so sick_ of waiting that it was making him feel actually nauseous. They'd prepared too well, which basically meant he'd had fuck all to do all afternoon but reread the words of the spell for the fifteen-hundred-and-seventh time (what? he'd _counted_) and worry. Because if this got fucked up, it was going to be pretty difficult for them to convince the docs at the Fucking Lunatic Asylum to keep Sam on long enough to give them another chance.

Because if this got fucked up, it might be too late for second chances.

Dean shifted in his seat and glared at his phone, willing it to ring. What the hell was Sam thinking? Even if he'd scoped out the place and worked out that Dean couldn't break in yet because of some situation with night watchmen or whatever, he should have called by now. Dean knew he'd left Sam's phone hidden under the mattress of his shiny new bed, along with all the other stuff they needed, so Sam was basically either being an asshole, or he'd run into trouble. But what the hell kind of trouble could he run into in a place where everyone was locked up for the night?

Dean remembered having this same conversation with himself two weeks before, when he'd woken up in a motel room and found Sam gone. He'd thought it might be Sam being an asshole then, too, and he'd been wrong (well, OK, when he'd finally found him Sam _had_ pretty much been an asshole, but that wasn't totally relevant). He cursed under his breath, stared at the _goddamn_ phone for another minute and a half, chewed his lip, changed the radio station a few times, and finally hauled himself out of the car and shot a glare at the Fucking Lunatic Asylum, where his brother was being tortured by demons in one reality and going to _group therapy_ in another one. God, he hated that freakin place.

OK, well, Sam hadn't called, and Dean wasn't waiting any more. He grabbed the duffle with all the things he'd prepared and slipped across the street into the parking lot. The doors were locked, but that was not going to be a problem. On the other hand, this wasn't breaking into an empty mansion in the wide spaces of the Pacific North-West, this was breaking into a building full of crazy people within shouting distance of the nearest neighbours, and he had to be careful, because there was no way, _no way_ he could fuck this up (except Sam hadn't called, which meant that something was already fucked up, but Dean wasn't going to think too hard about that, because, well, because he wasn't, OK?).

He put his hand in his pocket for his lock-picks, but his fingers snagged on something stiff and slightly sticky, and he pulled out the photo that he'd found under the passenger seat of the Impala back at Jim's. Jesus, had that only been a week ago? It felt like months. He examined the thing for a moment in the dim light filtering down from the streetlights – whatever that crap was that had been smeared all over it was still there, but that was about all he could make out in the dark, and there was no time to be mooning over old photos right now. There was work to be done.

Dean shoved the picture back in his pocket and managed to find the lock-picks. He stood by the door for a while, peering through the windows to see if there was anyone patrolling or whatever (what? It wasn't like he knew what people did in Fucking Lunatic Asylums at night, apart from go crazy or whatever and maybe conduct gross experiements, if TV and his own personal experience were to be believed), but it seemed clear. OK, time to go in.

The lock was no hassle at all, and the place didn't seem to be alarmed, which Dean thought was kind of an oversight when you've got a bunch of psychos up there, but he guessed they were more concerned with keeping people in than they were with keeping them out (oh, and by the way, he did _not_ appreciate the fact that his brain had decided to take this moment to lecture him in Sam's voice on the evils of using the word _psycho _to describe the mentally ill, Jesus, did no-one have a sense of humour any more? OK, OK, _bunch of nutjobs_, then). The corridors were dimly lit and annoyingly quiet, but Dean wasn't wearing any shoes (he'd finally decided that taking a single boot back with him to another dimension was more trouble than it was worth), so the noise his footsteps made was almost undetectable. Luckily, that wasn't true of the nurse who Dean would have walked straight into at a junction if he hadn't heard her coming.

He remembered the way to the ward Sam was on without too much trouble, climbing the stairs and hoping that Sam was in his room and not wandering around the corridors doing God knows what. The ward door was more of a challenge than the first, partly because the damn thing was in full view of the security guard slacking off behind his desk, but eventually the guy went off to assist in the crazy doctor's experiments or whatever (come on, a nuthouse that looked like this, there _had_ to be a crazy doctor doing experiments, hell, the zombie chick from earlier was probably the result of one of them), and Dean was able to do his thing and slip through unnoticed.

It got kind of trickier after that, though, because it turned out that when the corridor was dark and all the doors were closed, the ward looked pretty different to how it had in the daytime, and Dean remembered that he had to turn right at the first junction, but after that he was basically kind of screwed. He knew Sam's room was somewhere a few doors down from the turning, but he had no idea if it was two or four or freakin three-point-five, and the damn things didn't even have _numbers_ on them for Christ's sake, how the hell did anyone find their way around in here (well, apart from the fact that probably most people found their way around in daylight, or at least with the lights on). Each door had a little window in it, but that was pretty freakin useless because it was dark on the other side and Dean couldn't see a goddamn thing. Damn. _Damn_.

OK, he needed to calm down. It was only just midnight, and there was time to do this, there was time, there was no freakin need to freakin panic (and too many freakin uses of the word _freakin_ didn't count as panicking, it was just being expressive). Dean went back to the junction and closed his eyes, trying to remember walking down there with Sam earlier in the day. He'd been tense then, on edge (yeah, and he was totally fucking zen right now), checking out the rooms as they passed, trying to see if there were any threats to Sam, anything that should make him say _OK, we're calling this shit off right now_.

He started moving down the corridor, his eyes still closed. The first room on the left had had a tired-looking teenage girl sitting on the bed, who hadn't looked up as they passed. The one on the right had been empty. OK. The second on the left had had a guy who just _stared_, which probably was meant to freak Dean out but he pretty much had just stared back because he was Dean Winchester and he was really goddamn good at staring competitions, even with crazy people (or nutjobs or whatever – what the hell had he decided he was calling them?). The one on the right had had some guy sleeping. OK. The third room on the left had been empty, and the third on the right...

The third on the right. That was it.

Dean peered through the little window, even though he'd already proved to himself that the damn things were useless, because it was a _window_, so you had to look through it, right? He couldn't make out anything except vague shapes on the other side, though, and he knelt down and pulled out his picks again.

The door opened without a sound, and Dean sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the god of hinges (oh, come on, there had to be _someone_ in charge of hinges up there). There was the bed, and a huddled shape on it, and Dean hoped to God it was Sam as he slid the door shut again, because if he was wrong and he was about to wake up a stranger then he might just find himself in serious trouble.

He padded over to the bed and laid one hand on what he figured was probably the person's shoulder (Jesus Christ, it was dark). "Sam."

No response. Dean's eyes were gradually getting used to the darkness inside the room, though, and he was pretty sure it was Sam now, that hair was pretty much unmistakeable. "Sam," he said again in a loud whisper, and shook Sam's shoulder (and by the way, he was getting kind of tired of shaking Sam awake, it was like being freakin eighteen again). Sam mumbled something, and Dean said, "Yeah, that's right, Sammy, time to get your ass out of bed," and now that he was sure it was Sam he was starting to get pretty pissed off, because what the hell was he doing, they had a _plan_ goddammit and Sam _knew_ that if they fucked up then there were no more chances and all he'd had to do was find the room and call Dean, and instead here he was _sleeping_.

"Dean?" Sam said, voice blurred with sleep.

"Yeah, it's me," Dean said, thinking he should have known better, thinking that he could trust this Sam just because he looked and sounded like his Sam, after the bar fights and the running away and everything else you'd think he would have been more careful. "Get the hell up."

"'M sorry," Sam said, and started to sit up but then wobbled and sort of slumped over, and Dean only just caught him before he crashed onto the floor. "Sorry, Dean," he muttered again, and he was slurring like he was wasted, and then Dean worked out that something was wrong and felt his anger evaporate instantly.

"Jesus, Sam, what happened?" he asked, kneeling by the bed and holding Sam upright.

"Vision," Sam said, "tried to tell them it was OK, but..." he swayed, and Dean tightened his grip on his shoulders. "They drugged me," he finished.

"Shit," Dean said (and oh yeah, that anger was totally back now times a freakin million, only it wasn't Sam he was angry at any more). "You OK?"

Sam raised a hand to scrub at his face, and missed. "Feel weird," he said.

"Great," Dean muttered. He'd totally forgotten that it was likely Sam would have a vision while he was in the Fucking Lunatic Asylum, and what it would look like to the doctors. Jesus, he'd just _left_ Sam here, in the one place he didn't want to go for Christ's sake, and now look at him. He might as well have put him in a box marked _worst nightmare_ and had done.

"'S OK, Dean," Sam said, fingers pressing against Dean's arm. "I can... handle it. We need to get you home." He leaned heavily on Dean, trying to pull himself up, but Dean pushed him back down firmly.

"No way, Sam. You can't even freakin touch your nose, let alone paint all that shit on my back."

"I can," Sam said, sounding petulant, and went for his nose, poking himself in the eye in the process. "Ow," he said miserably. "Shit."

"Yeah," Dean replied. What the hell were they going to do?

"It'll... it'll wear off in a couple of hours," Sam said, sounding more hopeful than convinced. "It was still... early when they gave it to me."

"OK," Dean said, thinking fast. "I'll stay as long as I can and we'll see how it goes, OK?"

"OK," Sam said, sinking back down onto the bed. "Sorry," he said again.

Dean rubbed his hand over his chin. "Shove over," he said. Since he was stuck here, he might as well get a little rest. Sam shuffled along without complaint, and Dean managed to just about accommodate himself on the narrow strip of bed that was left over after Sam's ginormous frame had taken up most of it. "God," he said, staring at the ceiling. "This is fucked up." And yeah, he was lying on a bed with his drugged recovering-alcoholic not-really brother in a Fucking Lunatic Asylum that looked like even the other nuthouses avoided it because it was too goddamn creepy, but that wasn't actually what he meant, which just went to show how very, _very_ fucked up everything in Dean's life had become.

"You gonna sleep?" Sam asked.

"Nah. For some reason, I'm just not in the mood," Dean said. "Hey, you think anyone ever killed anyone in this room?"

There was a pause that was long enough for Dean to wonder if Sam had fallen asleep again, and then he replied, "What the hell kind of question is that?"

Dean shrugged. "This place is pretty old. And full of nutjobs. That sort of thing's bound to happen, right?"

"Jesus, you're... really Mr. Sensitive, aren't you?" Sam said, sounding like getting the words out was pretty hard going.

"So they tell me," Dean grinned. "So, whaddya think, murder? Or maybe suicide? Maybe in this very bed."

"Goddamn..." Sam muttered, and Dean's grin widened. _Not so funny now, are we?_ Yeah, OK, so maybe it was childish to take advantage of the fact that Sam was drugged to retake his crown as the funny one, but there was fuck-all else to do and if he stopped irritating the shit out of his little brother, he was afraid the reality of their situation was going to come crashing down and then he really would be screwed.

"Murder, definitely murder," he decided.

"There's gonna be... fucking murder," Sam muttered, and Dean thought _that's my boy_.

----

At three-thirty in the morning, Sam shoved Dean off the bed. Dean was pretty goddamn surprised – he'd been in the middle of comparing Jennifer Love Hewitt's ass to Sam's, and he totally lost his train of thought – and he stared up at Sam, who was grinning down at him in the darkness.

"Look," said Sam, and touched his nose.

Dean considered, and then nodded. "Time to go."

The room was easy enough to find – all Dean needed to do this time was follow Sam, who seemed to have actually planned ahead enough to count doors and everything, the geek – and by some stroke of crazy good fortune, it was empty. It took them a little while to set up the spell, but eventually Dean was in the middle of the circle and the patterns were painted and everything was ready. Everything except Dean.

He cleared his throat. "Sam, I..."

"Hey," Sam said. "It's OK. Really, Dean, it's OK."

"Right," Dean said, and then remembered something. He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out the photo he'd found earlier. "Here," he said, holding it out. "This is yours. I found it in my... in your car."

Sam took the scrap of card and looked at it curiously. "That's Dad," he said, and then looked up, his brow creasing. "What am I looking at?"

_Jesus_. Dean swallowed. "That's us," he said. "That's all of us, you and me and Dad and Mom. Haven't you ever seen a picture of Mom?"

Sam shook his head slowly. "Dad said we lost them all in the fire." And Dean realised that almost all the pictures of Mom he'd seen had had Dean in them too, and if Dad in this reality hadn't even told Sam that Dean existed, well... He closed his eyes.

"She was pretty," Sam said, staring at the photo now like it was going to vanish out of his hands any minute.

"Yeah," said Dean, and cleared his throat at the rough sound of his voice. "She was."

"And that's you," Sam said, with a wondering tone. Then he smiled. "Something worth dying for, right Dean?"

Dean shook his head. "Something worth living for." He bit his lip, not knowing what else to say, and then he remembered that he still had Sam's car keys. Relieved at something concrete he could do, he pulled both sets out of his pocket and held out the one with the troll to Sam. To his surprise, Sam reached out and took the other set.

"You keep mine," he said.

Dean frowned. "Dude, there's a _troll_ on it."

Sam stared at the little pink-haired piece of crap for a moment, and then said, "Jess gave it to me."

_Shit_. There went Dean again with his big goddamn foot wedged in his mouth. He stared at Sam, and Sam grinned suddenly. "Ugly little fucker, isn't it? People are going to think you're an utter loser with that thing attached to your keys."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I can't take this."

"Yeah, you can." Sam shrugged. "I don't need it to remember her. I want you to have it."

And really, what was there that Dean could say to that except _OK_?

"OK," said Sam. "Now do your freaky thing and get back to your Sam."

"You're my Sam," Dean said, and when Sam frowned, he added, "I just got two of you little geeks now, is all."

Sam started grinning again. "That's beautiful. I think I'm gonna cry."

"Bitch," said Dean.

"Jerk," replied Sam, and Dean thought his face might break from how wide he smiled.

Then he recited the words of the spell, and for a moment nothing happened and he thought _shit, shit, I don't have a back-up plan_, and then his stomach lurched like he'd just stepped out of a tenth-floor window and the scene in front of his eyes kind of exploded in a burst of colour, there was a shooting pain like his goddamn brain had had enough and decided to push self-destruct, and then he was lying on his back on the floor, the duffle he'd been clinging to lying on top of him and making his ribs creak, gasping and sputtering and thinking no _wonder_ he'd had such a freakin horrible hangover last time.

He didn't think that for long, though, because the room looked the same but Sam wasn't standing just outside the circle any more, in fact there _was_ no circle, but there was still a bed, and it wasn't empty. Jesus. Was it really that simple?

Dean struggled to his feet, and it was _Sam_ in the bed, God, it was really _Sam_, and he looked like shit even in the darkness, his wrists and ankles secured to the bed frame with soft straps, shit, shit, Sam was restrained, Sam had been lying in this goddamn bed for at least a week now, but Dean didn't have time to think about that because he had to get Sam the hell out of there before anyone realised he was there.

"Sam," he said, starting to unbuckle the strap around Sam's left wrist. "Sam, you OK?"

Sam didn't say anything, and Dean saw that his eyes were open but they weren't looking at him, weren't even looking in his direction, they were following something that Dean couldn't see, moving back and forth in that way that Dean had come to know and loathe, and shit, Dean was back now and wasn't he supposed to be a shield or something, wasn't Sam supposed to stop having visions now that Dean was back?

Apparently, it wasn't that simple. Sam made no response to Dean's pleas, and when Dean shook him by the shoulders it just made his head loll like he was a freakin rag doll.. Tears leaked continually out of the corners of his eyes, and Dean saw that there was a tube attached to the back of his right hand leading to a drip. He growled and pulled it out. "Come on, Sam, work with me here." But Sam just stared, oblivious, and then Dean heard footsteps at a distance outside and he knew it was now or never.

He moved fast, grabbing the gun and whatever else he could carry out of the duffle, then gritted his teeth and hauled Sam up and over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, which sent a sharp pain through his ribs and _really_ didn't help the pounding in his head, but also brought home to him that Sam didn't weigh anywhere near as much as he should and how much weight could you lose in two weeks anyway? Then he was at the door, and it was impossible to pick the lock and hold Sam and the gun at the same time, so he just kicked the damn thing down because at this stage speed was more important than quiet. The door gave on the second kick, and Dean darted out into the corridor (well, OK, he didn't really _dart_ so much as _lumbered_, but he totally would have darted if he hadn't had a freakin yeti hanging off his back) and turned left long enough to realise that that was the direction the footsteps were coming from and that the guy who was making them had eyes that would have looked black even in full daylight, then he did a sharp one-eighty and started moving as fast as he could, but there was no way in hell—no pun intended—that that was going to be fast enough, because the footsteps were coming up behind him, running now, and he tried to go faster, but something wrapped around his legs and crashed face-first to the ground, Sam flying forward a few feet and landing in a tumble of limbs just ahead of him. Shit. _Shit_.

Dean flipped, trying to scramble to his feet, but the demon was on top of him, grinning down into his face, and its breath stank of sulphur and Dean was _really fucking sick_ of having demons all up in his shit. "Dude, mouthwash?" he said, working his hand into his pocket and tried to ignore the pain in his ribs.

"So you came back," the demon said. "There's no point fighting for him any more, you know. It's too late. There's nothing left of him."

Dean felt something inside him twist, it had been twisting for a long time but goddamn if it wasn't about to break. "Fuck you," he said, and brought up the flask of holy water he'd grabbed from the duffle, flinging a spray into the demon's eyes. The demon howled and clawed at its face, and it wasn't much but it was enough, it was enough for Dean to crawl out from under it (and goddamn he really wanted to exorcise the son-of-a-bitch right there, but he had no idea if more might be coming and there wasn't time, there wasn't _time_) and stagger to his feet, grabbing Sam again and making a break for it.

He turned the corner, the door to the ward up ahead, and he paused long enough to lay a sloppy salt line across the width of the corridor, hoping to God it would buy him enough time to get out of the goddamn place.

The ward door was too sturdy to kick down, and the lock was as simple as it was in the other reality but Dean had to put Sam down to pick it, and by the time he hauled him up again, the demon was pacing on the other side of the salt line, its eyes like marbles, and it curled his lips at Dean and said, "You're not going to win this. You've haven't got a chance in hell."

"I'm not the one with the morbid fear of condiments," Dean said (and oh _God_ that was a freakin lame comeback, seriously, _condiments_?), and ran.

He didn't go down to the front door, because maybe he had a few bad plans in his recent history, but even _he_ wasn't that dumb. Instead, he dodged into the nearest office and felt his stomach lurch in relief when he saw that there were no bars on the window. They were on the second floor, but the drop to the ground wasn't far, and actually, if Sam had been able to stand he probably could have almost made it without dropping at all. As it was, he landed in an ungainly heap on the ground and Dean gritted his teeth and hoped that all this being tossed around wasn't fucking Sammy's head up even more.

They were on the other side of the building from the parking lot, and Dean grabbed Sam (and _Jesus_, his head was really freakin going for it with the whole all-night rave thing now) and started in that direction, but then he heard voices up ahead, and that was all the cue he needed to turn and stagger the other way. The fact that the Fucking Lunatic Asylum was surrounded by suburbia had pretty much pissed him off back when he was trying to get into it, but now that he was trying to get away it made him thank whatever goddamn power was _finally_ on his side, because there was a poorly-lit street and there was a car (and OK, it was a Honda, but right now Dean could live with that) and Dean was inside and hotwiring the damn thing with Sam slumped in the passenger seat tracking invisible things with his eyes before he even really registered what he was doing, and then the car started and they'd made it, _Jesus_, they'd made it, Dean was back where he needed to be and Sam was with him and they'd finally made it. If Dean hadn't been so busy heading for the nearest route out of town (and out of goddamn California while he was at it, God, he was more convinced than ever that the whole damn state was evil) he thought maybe he would have broken down and cried like a little girl. As it was, he just breathed, and it felt like he hadn't breathed in years.

----

They were somewhere in Nevada and the sun was being a little bitch and shining right in Dean's eyes when Sam suddenly jerked and then started screaming and thrashing, and Dean was so startled he almost drove off the road. He pulled over sharply and tried to hold Sam still, but Sam wasn't having any of it, and his endless limbs flailed crazily, narrowly missing Dean.

"Fuck," Dean said. "Sam, Sam! Calm down, it's OK, you're OK." He grabbed Sam and pulled him tightly against himself, wrapping his arms round Sam's chest. "You're OK," he said again, hugging Sam hard, Sam's hair all up in his face and smelling of grease and sweat and _brother_, and Sam quieted a little, his screams dialling down into heaving sobs. Dean just held him, there by the side of the road with nothing but desert around them, the early morning sun making the shadow of the car stretch out for miles, and Sam shuddered and twitched against him, and he thought _Christ. Christ._

----

Sam drifted between visions and incoherent sobbing for the rest of the day, and Dean drove until his vision was starting to blur and then got them off the road and tried not to remember the demon that had said _there's nothing left of him any more._ He sat on the bed in the motel room and stared at the wall and wondered what the hell he was going to do now, because for the last two weeks he'd had a goal, he'd had to get back to Sam, to save him, and now he _was_ back, he was _back_ and he didn't know how to save Sam, he didn't know _how_.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and reached into his pocket for the aspirin he was pretty sure he'd stashed there, and his fingers met something soft. He pulled it out, and it was the goddamn troll, grinning up at him like it had just heard that one about the three nuns and the monkey, and Dean remembered Sam – the other Sam – saying _I was drowning, and now I'm not. _God, if only it was that simple, if only he could save Sam just by _being_.

"But it's not, is it?" Dean muttered to the little lump of plastic in his hand (and if he'd thought maybe he was a little crazy for talking to his car, then at this point he probably should have just stayed in the goddamn Fucking Lunatic Asylum). He closed his eyes, and then turned to check on Sam, even though seeing the way his brother's eyes stared at something Dean could never hope to protect him from made him want to throw up.

Except Sam wasn't staring, and he wasn't crying.

He was sleeping.

----

Sam slept for three days straight, waking up occasionally but apparently still not really aware of Dean's presence. Dean moved them a few hundred miles everyday, but mostly he just slept, too. Turned out sleeping more than a few hours a night actually felt pretty damn good. He made a note to try that one more often.

On the third day, Dean was just heading for the shower when Sam said his name. He turned, and Sam had his eyes open, was looking at Dean, was _seeing_ Dean.

"Dean," he said again.

"Jesus," Dean said, and he stumbled forward, sitting down on the edge of Sam's bed because he wasn't sure his legs would hold him up. "Jesus, Sam." (And that was utterly lame, because when he'd rehearsed this in his head, he'd always said something casual like _morning, sunshine_ or _so you decided to wake up, huh?_, but all of that shit had just gone right out of his head, and he didn't freakin _care_).

Sam licked his lips. He still looked like a fucking zombie (and not the smiling kind, either), his skin almost translucent, stretched over his bones and shadowed under his eyes, but he was _awake_, and, if he was honest with himself, Dean probably didn't look much better (except for the part where he was just naturally better-looking, of course). "Where..." Sam's voice broke, and he cleared his throat. "Where did you go?"

Dean brushed the hair back from Sam's eyes. "That doesn't matter now. I'm back. I'm back now, Sam."

Sam blinked a couple of times. "I thought you'd left me." His voice was hoarse and scratchy.

Dean thought about that morning in Springfield that seemed like it was a hundred years ago now, when he'd woken up to find Sam gone. "Yeah, well, you can't get rid of me that easy." He remembered the other Sam, protected by the essence (or whatever) of his own Dean. _Maybe you can't get rid of me at all_.

Sam sighed and closed his eyes, curling up on his side facing Dean. "I'm glad you're back," he whispered.

"Yeah," Dean said, and for the first time he was just _glad_, just glad and not scared or angry or nervous, and it felt good. "Me too."

Sam's breathing evened out, but Dean had one more thing to say. "Sam, where's the car?"

Sam half-opened one eye. "It's your car, man," he slurred. "Where did you leave it?"

Yeah, turned out being _just glad_ didn't last too long. Dean looked down at his bare feet. He'd got his brother back, but he had no shoes, no car, and no clue where to start looking, which pretty much sucked. Looked like life was more or less back to normal, then. "Great, just great," he muttered, but the sun shone through the window of the motel room and Sam was sleeping peacefully beside him, and Dean felt lighter than he had in weeks.

----

**Epilogue**

"This paper was only signed two days ago," the doctor said, frowning suspiciously.

Jim was entirely undeterred. "Legal is legal," he said.

The doctor shook his head. "I'd prefer to keep him here," he said. "He has some quite severe delusions, and he had an incident the first day he was here."

"Don't worry, my son," Jim said, using his priest voice. "He'll get all the care he needs with me in Minnesota."

The doctor wasn't happy about it, but there was nothing he could do, and half an hour later Jim got up from his seat in the waiting area as Sam appeared from around the corner. Sam looked tired and pale, worn around the edges, but he smiled when he saw Jim.

"Hi," he said. "Thanks for coming to get me."

Jim smiled back. "Well, I _am_ your next of kin these days," he said, waving the papers he was carrying. "It was the least I could do. You OK?"

Sam shrugged. "Not really. Not yet. But I will be." He turned to the doctor who was standing by, looking on disapprovingly. "Don't worry, doc," he said, his smile turning into a smirk now. "I haven't seen Dean for a couple of days, and I don't think he's coming back. I'm cured!"

The doctor frowned, and Jim raised an eyebrow and took Sam's arm, leading him away because, as funny as it was, it wasn't really fair to tease the poor man. Once in the parking lot, he headed for the Impala where it was parked across the street.

"I thought we'd take your car," he said in reply to Sam's confused look. "Mine's a rental. I'll call them to pick it up."

"OK," Sam said, and then tossed Jim the keys. "I haven't been sleeping much," he explained. "Wouldn't want to wrap it round a tree."

Jim nodded and slid into the driver's seat. The radio came on as he started the engine, and suddenly Metallica was blaring through the car at an ungodly volume.

"Dear Lord," Jim said, reaching for the dial, but Sam got there before him, turning it all the way down but not off. When Jim raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged.

"I like it," he said.

Jim had made a long career out of reading people, and he decided that now was not the time to put his foot down. "All right, then," he said. "You ready to go?"

Sam faced front, eyes on the road ahead. "Yeah," he said. "We've got work to do."


End file.
